Orignal Comics Art on Display in Winston Friday

The “5” Royales strip that I built a “frame” for in a recent post will be on display starting Friday at the 5ive and 40rty gallery here in Winston as part of the exhibit Seeing Winston-Salem: Contemporary Artists’ View of the City. Unfortunately, I’ll not be at the opening, since I’ll be en route to SPX, but here’s the skinny:

5IVE & 40RTY brings together works by more than a dozen contemporary artists living in or near the city in Seeing Winston-Salem: Contemporary Artists’ View of the City. The exhibition opens Friday, October 3 and will remain on view through November 29, 2008. A reception will be held Friday, October 3 from 5:40 until 8:40pm.

The show is presented in collaboration with Reynolda House, Museum of American Art’s Seeing the City: Sloan’s New York Seeing Winston-Salem: Contemporary Artists View the City consists of works that depict or otherwise reference Winston-Salem, individuals who live and work here, and/or other aspects of the city’s life. Artists represented include Shawn Beard, Scott Betz, John Blackburn, Carlos Gustavo, Hieronymus, Laura Lashley, Trena McNabb, Leo Morrissey, Phil Morrison and Angus MacLachlan, Elsie Dinsmore Popkin, Juie Rattley, Liz Simmons, Peter Spivak, Ben Towle, Holly Wilbur,  and Mary Ann Zotto. The show includes naturalistic cityscape renderings, boldly graphic image-and-text paintings, street photography, miniature architectural sketches, a mural-scale collage-based work, comic-strip imagery, and digital video. The exhibition is being curated by writer and independent curator, Tom Patterson.

This exhibition doesn’t attempt to illustrate or editorialize on the myriad issues that characterize contemporary life in Winston-Salem, but it does touch on at least a few of those issues. More importantly, it represents the singular, “on-the-ground” views of a few of the artists who live here and contribute to the city’s reputation as a “city of the arts.”