Gallery to feature Eric McRay collages July 26-Aug 31

Gallery to feature Eric McRay collages July 26 – August 31

Sunset River Gallery in Calabash, NC will feature a collection of collages by artist Eric McRay in a show titled Southern Comfort: Collages by Eric McRay from July 26 through August 3. An opening reception will be held Friday, July 26 from 5 – 7 p.m. He will present a gallery talk beginning at 5:45 p.m. There is no charge and reservations are not required.

The Raleigh, NC based artist, who was born and raised in Washington DC, uses collage to explore visual storytelling while addressing the human figure as an entity of change in theatrical narratives. These chronicles are inspired by African American, Biblical, and art history, as well as pop culture, but at the core are McRay’s familial relationships. This continuum searches for personal and universal experiences.

McRay received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, where he earned a four-year scholarship for his artistic talent. He moved in North Carolina and has been exhibiting since 1987. His artistic career has been featured on television and radio programs and in numerous newspapers, magazines and online media outlets. The Raleigh News & Observer named him on of the “Artists to Watch” and he has been listed numerous times among “Best Local Artists.”

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 construction of his collages, which include such materials as reproductions of his previous works, painted papers, photographic snippets, scraps of fabrics, watermedia, acrylic paints and more. The different materials of everyday existence are edited, sliced, and reassembled into new images on paper, board, or canvas.

About Sunset River Gallery

Located in coastal Brunswick County, NC, Sunset River Gallery caters to both area visitors and a growing local community of full-time residents seeking fine art for their homes and businesses. Featuring works by over 100 fine regional artists including Betty Anglin Smith, Marcus McClanahan, Janet Sessoms, and Richard Staat, among others, the gallery is well known in the area for its selection of oil paintings; watermedia; pastels; photography; hand-blown, stained, and fused glass; pottery and clay sculpture; turned and carved wood; unique home décor items; and artisan jewelry.

There are two onsite kilns and five wheels used by the gallery’s pottery students. The gallery also offers ongoing oil/acrylic and watercolor classes as well as workshops by nationally known instructors.

The gallery’s carefully curated selection of investment-grade 20^th century fine art is the largest in the Carolinas. Current inventory can be found in the gallery website’s 20^th Century Artists section. It includes works by Wolf Kahn (1927-2020), Raimonds Staprans (1926), Angell Botello (1913-1986), Vladimir Cora (1951), Ginny Crouch Stanford (1950), and two bronze sculptures by Milton Hebald (1930 – 2010).

image: Detail, Sunset, collage by Eric McRay

Sunset River Gallery