The Greater Denton Arts Council recently opened exhibitions in the Meadows and Gough galleries at the Center for the Visual Arts.
The solo show “Blissful Blues and Pointillism Purples: Susan Mapes Kemper” will be in the Gough Gallery through Dec. 28.
Kemper looks to her surroundings for inspiration, interpreting them in aggressive colors and straightforward renderings. Her muses are plants, animals and the stuff of domestic life.
The artist leans toward humor, as in her painting Hiding From Bath Time. A worried dog sits stock-still beneath a shrub of fearless color.
Kemper made her living as a science teacher. It was only after retirement that she took up the brush and began making images in a semi-pointillist style — meaning she uses dots of color to build representational images.
“Like most folk artists, I am not a professionally trained artist, and have developed this style because I like to use texture and bright colors,” Kemper said.
In the Meadows Gallery, the council presents “All The World’s a Stage: Anita Lobel.”
Lobel is well known as a children’s book illustrator, with credits for Alison’s Zinnia,Away From Home and three works inspired by her cat, Nini. It was with her childhood memoir, No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War, that Lobel earned a spot among the six finalists for the National Book Award.
This exhibit, organized by the National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature in Abilene, will be in the gallery through Jan. 18.
Gallery hours are 1 to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Admission is free.
The arts center, located at 400 E. Hickory St., will be closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day holidays.
— Lucinda Breeding
