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ONWARD AND UPWARD: Raleigh Artist Continues To Rise
Jason Craighead is a model of upward mobility in the local arts world. While his paint brushes have been in constant motion over the past decade, so has his rise from “emerging” artist to well-established and critically acclaimed artist. His career, like his work, has been about momentum and progress. And there’s no better proof of that than what he accomplished over the past two months:
In October, the painting he donated to the Works of Heart auction, the Triangle’s premiere charitable auction to benefit the Carolina AIDS Alliance, drew the largest bid in the annual event’s 18-year history.
This month, Jason is one of only three featured artists in the Fayetteville Museum of Art’s new major exhibition entitled “The Energy of a Line.” The show opened November 7 and will run through January 11, 2009.
Since 1998, Jason has been creating a constantly evolving body of work in his small downtown Raleigh studio that has gained the respect – and representation – of some of the finest art galleries in this state and beyond, including Somerhill Gallery in Durham, Broadhurst Gallery in Pinehurst, and Ann Irwin Fine Art in Atlanta, Georgia. He has had recent conversations with two other, major Atlanta galleries.
This body of work landed him a major exhibit in the Municipal Building’s Block Art Gallery in downtown Raleigh this year – which he shared with artist Tricia McKellar -- that resulted in the City of Raleigh purchasing the largest painting in the show.
It is also the reason Somerhill Gallery will present a solo exhibit of his work next fall.
Somerhill’s Joseph Rowand explained the appeal and importance of Jason’s work:
"I am struck by Jason’s ways of simplifying or magnifying a thought or an experience into comprehensible, imaginable form,” he said. “With line, emerging forms, and juicy painterly passages on canvas, Jason does what a gifted artist is supposed to make us do -- and that is to stop us to better ponder what we might not otherwise.”
For the third consecutive year, Jason received the 2008 Metro Bravo Award for best regional artist from Metro Magazine. Metro’s art critic and fellow fine artist Louis St. Lewis wrote of Jason’s work: “If you have never seen [Jason’s] paintings before, they have the definite vibe of abstract expressionism, and they conjure up ghosts of everyone from Motherwell to Franz Kline to Cy Twombly.”
While the momentum has been growing around his art work, his reputation as a leader in the Raleigh arts community has solidified. He serves on the City of Raleigh Arts Commission’s (RAC) 30th Anniversary Committee. He co-owned Glance Gallery on Martin Street, a significant member of the downtown arts scene at one time. He has also served as a juror and signature artist for Works of Heart, as a juror for the Visual Art Exchange, and as Artsplosure’s signature artist.
A native of Panama City, Florida, Jason lives and works in a historic, third-floor walk-up in downtown Raleigh that he shares his wife, Meg, their two cats, and a host of fellow artists and other friends who drop by regularly.
To create the largest piece for the Fayetteville Show – 8 ft. x 12 ft. -- he borrowed some space in Purple Armchair on North West Street. His regular studio is actually a small, spare room in his apartment, where an old carpet keeps dripping paint off the hardwood floor and a CD player keeps music going in the background. Two walls are covered in boards and backdrops, where he pins up his canvases for painting – at least two at time -- before stretching them onto frames. Through the studio’s window, he has a panoramic view of the heart of the downtown district with its cranes and construction – elements of the urban fabric that once inspired lines and shapes in his paintings. He’s quick to point out that that period has passed.
“I’m detaching from ‘things,’” he said one October afternoon as he stepped back to study one pieces he created for the Fayetteville show. “The work is asking me just to discuss space and line.”
He describes his new direction as “the ultimate transitional moment for me, and I feel these pieces are representative of that transition. I’m beginning to have a more philosophical approach to my work. I’m no longer afraid to do what I’m doing – to let out whatever needs to be let out. I’m finding space and creating rhythm, and letting my work become the pure thing that it is.” Then he offers what has become something of a mantra for him: “With less fear comes more freedom.”
“The Energy of a Line” includes the work of two other artists Jason admires: painter Gerry Lynch and sculptor Seth Hicks. For more information, visit www.fayettevillemuseumart.org.