hidell brooks is kicking off the fall art season with two solo exhibitions for southern artists susan mcalister and kate long stevenson. both artist’s shows include works on canvas and paper. susan mcalister’s abstracted landscapes are an ode to her love of the land. the changing skies, lush foliage and mountain tops roll across the canvas in all their vastness. over the years kate long stevenson’s subject has gone between pure abstraction and figurative. for her current exhibition kate wanted to merge the two ideas into hardly an either/or creating a group of work that blends the figure into abstraction.
susan mcalister
susan mcalister received her ba from davidson college and has been painting for over 30 years. her lush, often abstracted landscapes are evocative and powerful explorations of her quest for places and things that nurture and inspire. susan applies multiple layers of paint, wax, marble dust and graphite combined to simultaneously construct and deconstruct.
kate long stevenson
expressionist painter kate long stevenson was born and raised in north carolina, and began her professional career while a student at the university of the south. gestural brushstrokes and a passion for color are characteristic to all of her pieces, ranging from figurative paintings to abstracts. a life-long lover of music, kate relies on mostly classical compositions to guide her as she builds a painting, layering chords of color over energetic swirls of charcoal and paint. "it's important to me that my paintings have a subject, despite how non-subjective some can seem. with my nude paintings, the figure is the vehicle that invites you to discover the true subject: the elements--the way it was painted. the abstracts have just skipped that introduction, altogether, but they're still about something--music, tempo, motion and emotion. it all comes from a feeling, but then the challenge is not only to translate that to the canvas but to have it make sense, compositionally." kate lives in charleston, south carolina with her two sons.
all available work by each artist can be viewed on the artist page of our site under the artist's individual tab. click on the artist image to see all work including sizing and pricing. the opening reception with susan mcalister + kate long stevenson is friday, september 6th from 6-8 pm. please call the gallery if you have any further questions.