Sponsored by Jewell Drewery, Jane and John Franck, Gale and Will Gravely, Tracie Heavner and Jim Frith, Helen S. and Charles G. Patterson Jr. Charitable Foundation Trust, Lynwood Artists, Melody Margrave, Sovah Health, Stuart and Tom Webster, Phyllia and Mike Wenkstern and What's Your Sign.
Donald Towns is a painter, background animation illustrator and art director. He finds inspiration in a variety of subjects — from nature to architecture to everyday objects — and the way light and color interact with his subject matter. His experience in the motion picture industry has influenced his painting, giving his work the ethereal appearance of animated movie stills.
He attended the American Academy of Art in Chicago and went on to work at Disney, where he was involved in the making of the award-winning films "Beauty and the Beast," "Aladdin” and "The Little Mermaid," as well as the groundbreaking movie "TRON," which included the first computer-generated imagery in a live-action film.
He has freelanced for several companies and was privileged to work under the late Thomas Kinkade as a digital concept artist for the Thomas Kinkade Company. His painting “Fount of Life” won Best in Show at “Expressions 2025,” the annual open-entry exhibition presented by Lynwood Artists and Piedmont Arts. He lives in Stuart, Virginia, with his wife Karen.
Admission Free
Sponsored by Jewell Drewery, Jane and John Franck, Gale and Will Gravely, Tracie Heavner and Jim Frith, Helen S. and Charles G. Patterson Jr. Charitable Foundation Trust, Lynwood Artists, Melody Margrave, Sovah Health, Stuart and Tom Webster, Phyllia and Mike Wenkstern and What's Your Sign.
The stories that permeate our newsfeeds have become increasingly dark. Abuse, discrimination, oppression, violence and war are global problems that all countries and people face. To shine a light on some of the individuals who stand against injustice and advocate for peace, this project asked artists to create a series of digital stamps featuring portraits of these heroes, one for each sovereign nation. The result is a collection of 198 portraits of peace advocates created by more than 100 artists.
"Peace Post" is a project of Selman, a tight-knit studio of creatives who are committed to creating projects that positively impact our world. Selman was founded by Martinsville native Johnny Selman and is based in Brooklyn, New York.
“Johnny and his team at Selman design are known for the power they deliver with courageous simplicity. In 'Peace Post' they have ingeniously flipped the postage stamp, normally reserved for kings and queens and heads of state, to frame some of the world’s best and least known advocates for democracy, equality and environmental justice.” — Journalist and filmmaker, Ruaridh Arrow
The project is a 2025 Webby Award-winner for Cultural Website and People's Voice. Learn more at peace-post.com.
Admission Free
Sponsored by Jewell Drewery, Jane and John Franck, Gale and Will Gravely, Tracie Heavner and Jim Frith, Helen S. and Charles G. Patterson Jr. Charitable Foundation Trust, Lynwood Artists, Melody Margrave, Sovah Health, Stuart and Tom Webster, Phyllia and Mike Wenkstern and What's Your Sign.
Leah Raintree is an artist based in Richmond, Virginia and Brooklyn, New York. Her artworks engage the interconnection between humanity, time and the Earth. She works through an experimental drawing practice that spans media, treating mark-making as a form of attentive translation, exploring how time, memory and phenomena are inscribed within the planet. Raintree grew up on a small farm in Virginia, drawing on her early experiences of “touching earth” to inform her projects. She often integrates site-specific materials, treating the Earth, time and matter as active participants in the work, while her ongoing "Timekeeper" drawings underscore the importance of process across her artistic practice.
“Legible Earth: The Fire Tapestries” marks the ten-year anniversary of the Valley Fire in Northern California, when Raintree’s sister and family lost their home to wildfire. Borrowing from the language of ancient tapestries that survive as storytellers, intricate line drawings are interwoven with washes of wildfire char. These intimate explorations address the global impacts of wildfire on ecological and human communities, alongside the process of bearing witness, renewal and repair.
The exhibition is a continuation of Raintree’s series “Legible Earth,” which explores the artifacts and inscriptions of climate change. “Legible Earth: Script” and “Score” engage the collection at Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty Core Repository, producing artworks using deep ocean sediments from the Arctic and Antarctic regions used by scientists in the study of ice sheet loss. In these multi-layered works, Raintree responds to these earthen materials through an improvisational drawing process, recalling maps, musical scores and other systems of notation.
Admission Free
Sponsored by Jewell Drewery, Jane and John Franck, Gale and Will Gravely, Tracie Heavner and Jim Frith, Helen S. and Charles G. Patterson Jr. Charitable Foundation Trust, Lynwood Artists, Melody Margrave, Sovah Health, Stuart and Tom Webster, Phyllia and Mike Wenkstern and What's Your Sign.
The Lynwood Artists Gallery features a selection of "inspired creations" by the group's members.
The Lynwood Artists Gallery is curated by Lynwood Artists, an organization for practicing artists in the Martinsville-Henry County area. Its members share a desire to stimulate understanding and enjoyment of fine art and the artistic process, while providing area artists with opportunities to exhibit and further develop their talents.
Admission Free
Sponsored by Helen S. and Charles G. Patterson Jr. Charitable Foundation Trust, Sovah Health and What's Your Sign.
This annual traveling exhibition by members of the American Watercolor Society includes paintings with styles ranging from hyper-realistic to abstract by artists from around the globe. More than 1,100 artists from the U.S. and 32 foreign countries submit their work to the exhibition each year and 40 pieces are chosen to be exhibited across the country.
The American Watercolor Society was founded in 1866 and is a nonprofit membership organization devoted to the advancement of watercolor painting in the United States. Membership in the society is granted by a panel of judges and signifies an artists mastery of the medium.
Admission Free
Sponsored by Helen S. and Charles G. Patterson Jr. Charitable Foundation Trust, Sovah Health and What's Your Sign.
Smith is an oil painter based in coastal North Carolina. Living on the Brunswick River has provided her with an endless source of inspiration for her paintings. Straddling the border between representational and impressionistic, her style has developed over 16 years of study and experimentation in oils. She paints what she loves and enjoys tinkering with color.
Admission Free
Sponsored by Helen S. and Charles G. Patterson Jr. Charitable Foundation Trust, Sovah Health and What's Your Sign.
The Lynwood Artists Gallery features paintings by Kelly Gravely Mattox.
Featuring still lifes, landscapes and figurative paintings in oil, her work is an eye-catching kaleidoscope of hues. “My artwork is an extension of my personality,” says Mattox. "My representational to abstract work has a common theme: lots of energy, exuberant high color, plus an intensity acquired by bold brush strokes. The manipulation and harmony of these components is what intrigues me. ”
Her work has been shown across the country and was exhibited at Piedmont Arts' Historic Little Post Office in 2015. She has won numerous awards in "Expressions," the annual open-entry exhibition presented by Lynwood Artists and Piedmont Arts, including Best in Show in 2015 and Best Lynwood Artist in 2025. She holds a BFA in commercial art with a minor in art history from Virginia Commonwealth University. She grew up in Martinsville, Virginia, and now lives in Lynchburg, Virginia.
The Lynwood Artists Gallery is curated by Lynwood Artists, an organization for practicing artists in the Martinsville-Henry County area. Its members share a desire to stimulate understanding and enjoyment of fine art and the artistic process, while providing area artists with opportunities to exhibit and further develop their talents.
Admission Free
Sponsored by Helen S. and Charles G. Patterson Jr. Charitable Foundation Trust, Sovah Health and What's Your Sign.
Bannan’s works are based on seeing the earth from above. The experience of her first transcontinental flight was a stunning visual experience that demonstrated in a graphic way the enormity and variety of the land mass our country is situated upon. It was at that moment her painting became inexorably tied to flying. She is fascinated by visual sensations resulting from the interplay between manmade elements and the natural land surface and how people carve out a living in the geography in which they exist.
Bannan is a professor in the School of Visual Arts at Virginia Tech. She holds a BA in studio art from Virginia Tech and an MFA in painting from Pratt Institute. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions around the country.
Admission Free
Sponsored by Helen S. and Charles G. Patterson Jr. Charitable Foundation Trust, Sovah Health and What's Your Sign.
Robinson’s work is propelled by the unexpected lines she sees sewing the universe together. Sometimes close, sometimes loose, there are parallels and commonalities to be found. Bringing these threaded lines to light weaves a space where viewers can see themselves as part of a larger whole. She wants viewers to see that they have meaning, connection and agency over life’s outcomes.
Robinson is a professor at the School of Art and Design at East Carolina University. She is also the proprietor of Somnambulist Tango Press where she makes artists books, broadsides, fine art, installations, curates exhibitions. Her work has been exhibited around the country is part of the collections of the New York Public Library, University of Chicago, Brown University, UC-Santa Cruz, Emory University and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Admission Free
Sponsored by Helen S. and Charles G. Patterson Jr. Charitable Foundation Trust, Sovah Health and What's Your Sign.
Lauren Thornhill is a knitter from Collinsville, Virginia. Her piece "A Crow's Gift" won Best in Show in "Expressions 2024," the annual open-entry exhibition presented by Lynwood Artists and Piedmont Arts.
Admission Free
Sponsored by Helen S. and Charles G. Patterson Jr. Charitable Foundation Trust, Sovah Health and What's Your Sign.
The Lynwood Artists Gallery features work by the Reynolds Homestead Weavers Exchange.
The group was founded in 1985 by Cecelia Cassady and Johanna Britt. Since that time, the group has grown from informal sessions where members worked on personal projects to organized meetings with programs and workshops led by weavers of regional and national reputation. The group meets bi-monthly at the Community Engagement Center at Reynolds Homestead in Critz, Virginia.
The Lynwood Artists Gallery is curated by Lynwood Artists, an organization for practicing artists in the Martinsville-Henry County area. Its members share a desire to stimulate understanding and enjoyment of fine art and the artistic process, while providing area artists with opportunities to exhibit and further develop their talents.
Admission Free
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
