RECEPTION: MAY 9

works by Veda Saravanan & Felicia VanBork

EXHIBIT OVERVIEW

With a mix of real and abstract influences Regarding Facets portrays human forms and faces in ways beyond what the eye perceives. Veda Saravanan’s cubist inspired figures and Felicia van Bork’s brush-stroked faces invite the viewer to see more than merely line and color.

EXHIBIT STATEMENTS

VEDA SARAVANAN

This body of work is inspired by Picasso ‘s Cubism. He felt that we do not see an object from one angle or perspective, but rather from many angles selected by sight and movement. 

I like the natural mixing of colors, overlapping on each other and then forming different shapes and colors. Cubism is known for its deconstructed, geometric representations, and its complete form of abstraction.

In addition to the cubic formation of different geometric shapes, this collection is also figurative. I like to narrate women’s moods and movements.

I never limit myself to one medium or style. I’m inspired by colors and shapes and all kinds of forms. In my art, I include many angles and lines, but make sure there is connectivity between the lines. 

As an artist I focus on form and color, this allows me to be between realism and abstract.

ARTIST BIO Veda Saravanan, has always been self taught and experimental with her color palette. She doesn’t hesitate to let her colors speak to her and bring brightness to her different forms of art. Veda loves to see the surprise element in the outcome of using different colors and designs. Traveling has really impacted the different ways she uses colors and culture in her work. She has been traveling since a young age and continues do so as a passion towards her art. Her distinctive style and cultural upbringing allowed her to become the artist that she is today. She has been all over the world and it continues to inspire her work.

FELICIA VANBORK

Felicia van Bork was drawing portraits before she was two. Today, she is an artist who competes against herself to be “not boring.” In her search to document her world in a way that is accurate and expressive, she pushes herself to use the minimum number of brushstrokes, paint the most accurate likeness possible, and dare to incorporate the most surprising and fresh mark-making she can. 

Her several interrelated bodies of work all investigate the tension between representation and experience; she creates images that combine the appearance of an observed subject with the experience of responding to that subject.

ARTIST BIO Felicia van Bork’s paintings, both abstract and representational, are in many private and public collections. She is also known for in her “How To” series of collage work, which is featured in the permanent collection of the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC, and which took her to the American Academy in Rome as Visiting Artist in 2017 and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in 2022. Her love of color and teaching come into play at Charlotte’s McColl Center as well. There, she is the Coordinator of the Printmaking Lab and co-host of Draw McColl Center, a weekly open life drawing studio. She founded the international online portrait group, @portraitpalsgroup. She teaches printmaking workshops at McColl Center, and private classes including her popular Liberated Brush workshop. Her “Heads” series of encaustic portraits earned her a spot in MassArt’s MFA program at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where she graduated in 2011. She was the Art Director at Columbia University’s Columbia Scholastic Press Association and went on to be a professor in the art departments of universities and colleges including Penn State, The Behrend College; Central Piedmont Community College; Columbia University; UNC Charlotte; and Davidson College, teaching graphic design, painting, drawing, life drawing and portraiture. Among many honors and residency fellowships, she was the Featured Artist at Central Piedmont’s Sensoria arts festival in 2018. Her work has also been selected for representation at the National Portrait Gallery.