Raleigh, NC-based artist Eric McRay’s much awaited collage show, which is  titled  Southern Comfort, opens Friday, July 26, 2024 with a public reception from 5 – 7 p.m. The show runs through August 31. Please join us to meet Eric and hear his firsthand inspirations for this insightful exhibition of original collages. According to the artist he uses collage to expose visual storytelling while addressing the human figure as an entity of change in theatrical narratives. These chronicles are inspired by African-American, Biblical references, art history, and pop culture . . . yet, at the core, are McRay’s familial relationships. This continuum searches for personal and universal experiences.

McRay says, “Collage, one of the major innovations of modern art, is an artist inserting pieces of the real world into a constructed one.” He injects impromptu invention in the constructions of his collages, which include such materials as reproductions of his previous works, painted papers, photographic reproductions, snippets of photography, scraps of fabric, elements from magazines, and more. The different materials of everyday existence are edited, sliced, and reassembled into new images on paper, board, or canvas. These constructed worlds pull the viewer into a new reality. Collage empowers McRay to push the boundaries that allow the real world to infiltrate a painting, dissolve the conventions that separate art and life, high art and popular culture.