Folly Beach Morning
36 x 36 in.
Oil
$7500.
FASO June 2018 Bold Brush Award.
Available through LePrince Fine Art, Charleston, SC.
In this studio painting, artist Nancy Tankersley captures the feel of old beach cottages she visited in her youth. Rather than pristine landscape and high-rise condos, these cottages evoke a slower and, perhaps, fuller way of life. By suggesting old grills, lawn chairs, and the detritus of summers enjoyed, rather than depicting the details of the objects, they become abstract shapes that support the environment dominated by the old cottage and the towering palm trees.
“Nancy has achieved a beautiful treatment of sunlight, and excellent massing of shapes, especially in the trees and vegetation. Nancy’s use of warm and cool colors to draw the eye into the painting is a hallmark of a Master. Her color is vibrant, without being gaudy, and the whole painting has an air of restfulness. The cool shadows are particularly appealing for a tropical theme. Her drawing skills ensure the whole work is without flaw, while the brushwork is pleasingly loose. All in all, this painting is a beauty,” says artist Katherine Galbraith.
Nancy has been active in the plein air movement in many roles. A founder of Plein Air Easton, a juried competition in Easton, Maryland, she has served as advisor and/or judge for numerous invitations and juried events, as well as actively participating as an artist in many others. As she enters her fifth decade as a professional artist, she finds herself returning more and more to the studio where she can explore the paints and surfaces and experiment with new painting techniques and tools. Her recent body of work is more about memory, imagination and emotion. As Thomas Cole the famous Hudson River landscape artist said “If the imagination is shackled, and nothing is described but what we see, seldom will anything truly great be produced either in painting or poetry………. In my studio, I have the luxury of time to draw a veil over the common details, the unessential parts which shall leave the great features, whether the beautiful or the sublime dominant in the mind.” (Thomas Cole to Asher B. Durand, 1838).
In addition to numerous awards in plein air events and national competitions, Nancy has twice been invited to exhibit in the American Masters Exhibit at the Salmagundi Club and this year will return to PACE (Plein Air Convention and Expo) as a field instructor. In 2018, she released a video titled Painting Figures from Photographs through Liliedahl. To see her current biography and awards, and to sign up for her mailing list, visit her website.
In March of this year the artist will have a solo show at South Street Art Gallery titled Journeys.
“Nancy Tankersley is one of America’s premier living artists. Her current work is but the latest chapter in an ongoing narrative about design, materials, technique, and meaning; and most recently, about memory, imagination and emotion. Through her painting, her teaching and mentoring of other artists, her consulting with arts and civic organizations, and her long journey as an artist she is influential in contemporary American painting. Any collection that purports to represent the late 20th and early 21st centuries in American art is incomplete without Nancy’s work. Nancy is a true American Master,” says Alan Brock, collector and owner of South Street Art Gallery, Easton, MD.
In addition to LePrince and South Street Art Gallery, Nancy is also represented by Chasen Galleries, Gildea Gallery and William Ris.
