Bill White and Jan Knipe mount major shows at the Wilson

Last fall, the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum saw the return of Hollins favorites Bill White and Jan Knipe, both retired members of the art faculty, whose exhibitions featured new and recent work.

In her essay for White’s catalog, “Empathy and Engagement,” art historian and curator Jennifer Samet quoted White on one of the hallmarks of his paintings: light. “I am looking for a unity, especially around the issue of the light. Does it feel like the light is authentic? If it doesn’t I’ll abandon the painting, take it back out, do something on top of it. It is intuitive and felt, and it is about empathy…” About White’s most recent work, a series of Paris and Roanoke rooftop paintings, Samet writes, “They have a grand orchestration of color and light, and a unity achieved with a touch that is never heavy-handed.”

Knipe is long known for her drawing, especially of landscapes and still lifes, but her newest work moves toward the abstract. In his exhibition catalog essay, “Observation and Invention,” art critic John Goodrich writes, “Drawing as marks of pencil or charcoal on paper may be the most low-tech of the high arts, but it allows for a remarkable variety of expressions…In the hands of the accomplished Jan Knipe, all these possibilities of drawing come into play in her vivid and intimate images of her visual environment.”

Photos credit: Richard Boyd