Is Pleased to Present an Exhibition featuring artists Verna Hart and Preston Sampson
International Visions-The Gallery
2629 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20008
April 10, 2004
Please Join us at the Artist’s Opening Reception
on March 13, 2004 from 6:30-9:00 pm
Verna
Hart is
native New Yorker, born in Harlem and now a resident
of Brooklyn. She was exposed to jazz at an early age
and has painted in a way that demonstrates a melding
of her artistic ability with her love of music. Hart's
images are always expressive. The incorporation of Jazz
rhythms and textures of the paint create movement, overlapping
colors like sound that float through infinite space.
She has and an emotional energy with shown at the Studio
Museum of Harlem, The Dorsey Gallery, New York, and
Eubie Blake National Museum, Baltimore. Hart has her
work in collections like the Transit Commission, Hanes
Hosiery/Sara Lee, and the Absolut Vodka Commission.
Individual collectors include Bill Cosby, Ellis &
Branford Marsalis, Malcolm Jamal Warner, and Lionel
Hampton.
Preston Sampson is a local figurative
artist whose illuminating works on un-stretched and
un-primed canvas have gained him a national acclaim
from private and institutional art collectors. Sampson
uses acrylic paints; his vigorous brush strokes pulsate
with rhythm and energy. Sampson explores jazz melodies
in the most exuberant paintings of musicians and dancers.
His goal is for his figurative portrayals "to emote,
touch and move you to the center of it all." Another
reoccurring theme in Sampson's work is the dominant
male figure, done in epic and heroic scale, exuding
pride and dignity. Sampson was commissioned by Absolut
Vodka to create a painting for their award winning ad
campaign and the painting is part of their permanent
collection. In 2003 he was commissioned by The Bank
of America to create a painting for their publication
entitled, "Chronicles of Black Wealth. "
