Buies Creek, N.C. – Campbell University Art Professor Breck Smith’s painting, “Dark Wood No. 2,” was selected for a juried show and art auction to benefit the North Carolina Museum of Art Foundation. The auction was held on May 21. Smith’s painting, a 12”x12” acrylic on a wood panel, took its title from Dante’s epic poem, “The Divine Comedy.”
“The work, of course, is abstract,” Smith said. “My studio is a three season room, so there is glass all around on three sides and there are woods in the back yard. Both ‘A Dark Wood’ and ‘A Dark Wood No. 2’ have dark colors, so I felt the mood of both paintings was somewhat dark. The beginning lines of ‘The Divine Comedy,’ ‘Midway upon the journey of our life I found myself within a forest dark,’ seemed to express the mood of the paintings.”
The juried show included original works in all media, including paintings, three-dimensional works such as pottery, sculpture, ceramics, wood and mixed media, video, street art and textiles, including clothing, accessories and jewelry. As a participating artist, Smith’s work was exposed to a large public audience, including collectors, high-level donors and North Carolina Museum of Art attendees.
“I felt extremely proud and lucky to have a piece chosen for the show,” Smith said. “It was a show associated with one of the leading art museums in the country.”
Smith graduated from Averett College in Danville, Va., with a Bachelor of Arts in 1980. He received a Master of Fine Arts in 1982 from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His paintings were selected for inclusion in the 2003 Bowery Gallery National Competition in New York and the 10th National Juried Show at the Art Center of Northern New Jersey, as well as the North Carolina Artists Exhibition at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh. Smith is the recipient of a Visual Art Fellowship from the North Carolina Arts Council and was featured in a two-person show at the Chapel Hill Public Library. Works by Smith were also featured in the 2006 “Southern Landscape” exhibition at the Lee Hansley Gallery in Raleigh, N.C.
Photo Copy: “A Dark Wood No. 2,” a painting by Campbell University Art Professor Breck Smith.