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North Carolina’s premier custom picture framer since 1968, Craven Allen Gallery/House of Frames features the largest selection of framing choices in the region, as well as the Triangle’s most experienced picture framers. Our gallery features local and nationally known artists.
Everyone at Craven Allen Gallery is deeply saddened by the passing of Phil Freelon on July 9, 2019. If you’d like to honor him with a contribution to the North Star Church of the Arts, follow this link.
EXHIBITIONS
Join us Tuesday, October 8, 6-8 pm
for a gallery talk with
LARRY WHEELER with
DAMIAN STAMER and
BEVERLY MCIVER
PAINTING LARRY
Two of the Triangle’s most exciting artists took on the challenge of painting Larry Wheeler, director of the North Carolina Museum of Art, on the occasion of his retirement. Now you can join Larry Wheeler, Damian Stamer and Beverly McIver as they use these paintings as a springboard for a discussion about art from the vantage point of both artist and collector.
Seating will be limited; to reserve a spot please call Craven Allen Gallery at 919-286-4837. Standing room will also be available, as well as streaming on Facebook Live.
UNSEEN
Watercolors and Works on Paper
Opening at Craven Allen Gallery September 7th
Through November 2nd
Damian Stamer (b. American, 1982) received his Master of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Jacob K. Javits fellow in 2013 and his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Herberger Institute of Art and Design and Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University (where he studied painting with Craven Allen Gallery artist Beverly McIver) as a National Merit scholar in 2007. He also studied at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts as a Fulbright grantee, and the State Academy of Art and Design in Stuttgart, Germany as a Rotary Ambassadorial scholar.
Stamer was last seen at Craven Allen Gallery with Greg Lindquist in conjuction with his exhibition Altered Land at the North Carolina Museum of Art. His first Craven Allen show was Crosscut, juxtaposing his work alongside photographs from the Jim and Jane Finch collection. Recent museum exhibitions include Area 919 at Duke University’s Nasher Museum, and The Things We Carry: Contemporary Art in the South at the Gibbes Museum in Charleston. In 2019, his work will be seen in exhibitions in the United Arab Emirates and Japan.
Damian’s contemporary paintings explore themes of memory and loss through formal and conceptual approaches. Detailed architectural forms reminiscent of his childhood memories of the South are combined with gestural brushstrokes that push and pull the images into existence. The artist lives and works in Durham, North Carolina.
Statement
I paint places close to home, barns and abandoned buildings. As adolescents, my twin brother and I rummaged through rooms pregnant with secrets, inspecting forgotten objects in search of hidden treasures. Moldy mattresses whispered of sex, drugs, and shelter from the winter cold. Adrenaline of discovery often mixed with the fear of being discovered. Even today, standing in these seemingly empty places, you never know if someone had been here twenty years, or twenty minutes ago.
I am undoubtedly comforted by this landscape. However, despite my numerous positive memories, these ruins also represent a past and present I too often did not see. The centuries-old industries that brought many of these picturesque barns were built upon slavery, oppression, and denial of human rights. Although transgressions may be buried deep beneath the soil, some of the power structures that enabled them remain.
I am shaken by an old barn’s history, yet I find beauty within it. Time is visible here. Quiet moments near the sublime when afternoon light rakes the grain of a fallen beam, or cloud-like stuffing erupts from a rotten chair. Violent and tender, this beauty hinges on the delicate nature of existence. These remnants are, like us, soaked with impermanence. We cannot escape a similar fate.
I depict these icons of the Carolinas not to monumentalize, but rather to question my identity embedded and reflected within them. Nostalgia, sentimentality, naiveté, violence, loss, guilt, fragility, and complicity coexist, and can prove difficult to reconcile. What else can I still not see?
Press
NEWS
Reporter Joe Johnson of the Durham Herald-Sun tells how Thomas Sayre inspired students at the Hill Center in Chapel Hill! Read more ….READ MORE
In the early 20th century the artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) realized multiple paint colors, which did not represent a house or a tree or a person, could be applied to a canvas and it would be a viable painting. It was called abstraction and it marked a revolution….READ MORE
The Anyone Can Fly Foundation is honoring Beverly McIver with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Faith Ringgold will host a garden party benefit honoring the artist. The mission of the foundation is to expand the art establishment’s canon to include artists of the African Diaspora….READ MORE
Beverly McIver has been awarded the Rome Prize. Also in the news, her HBO documentary Raising Renee is now available to stream on Amazon Prime. For over a century, the AMERICAN ACADEMY IN ROME has awarded the Rome Prize to support innovative and cross-disciplinary work in the arts and humanities….READ MORE
Beverly McIver was recently honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, America’s most prestigious honorary society of architects, artists, writers, and composers, with a purchase award…READ MORE
Paintings by Craven Allen artists Linwood Hart, Sue Sneddon and Damian Stamer were featured recently in the HGTV tv show LOVE IT OR LIST IT…READ MORE
Fresh off the heels of his trifecta of museum shows at the NCMA, Nasher, and Ackland, Burk Uzzle is featured in the News & Observer choosing framing at Craven Allen for his incredible Greenville show…READ MORE