Sedona AZ (June 10, 2014) – Independence Day is a time to celebrate everything that makes our country great, including nature and art. Rowe Fine Art Gallery invites you to spend July 4 with them as they introduce two new wildlife painters during Strokes of Independence: Nature in a New Light. From 5 to 8 p.m., stop into the gallery to see the work of oil painter and scratchboard artist Julie T. Chapman and acrylic painter Kim Diment. Both artists are represented in Arizona exclusively by Rowe Gallery.
Julie T. Chapman grew up on a family farm in central Ohio where she was fascinated by wildlife, but she pursued a career in computer engineering. Julie worked for Hewlett Packard for almost 20 years before she became a full-time artist in 2002. Today, she lives in Montana where she creates contemporary wildlife and western paintings as well as scratchboards. Scratchboards are panels with black ink on top of white clay. Using an X-Acto knife, Julie scratches away at the black ink to create wildlife images. The effect is startlingly realistic.
“Even when I was working for HP, I was creating art on the weekends, so I always had this artist/engineer split personality,” says Julie. “Scratchboards and painting feed both of those sides. Scratchboards are my Zen side while paintings appeal to my rock ’n’ roll sensibility.”
Kim Diment also grew up loving the outdoors and wildlife. “This is the standing joke in my family: What came first, my love of animals or my drawing of animals?” she says. Kim became enamored with Southwest wildlife when she visited Arizona four years ago, and some of her new subjects include leopard frogs, cardinals and prairie dogs. Kim lives on the Au Sable River in Michigan where the wildlife sightings are so numerous she’s frequently distracted from her work. Her paintings are inspired by her personal interaction with animals from Arizona to Africa.
Rowe Fine Art Gallery represents traditional and contemporary southwestern art. The gallery is located under the bell tower in Patio de las Campanas at Tlaquepaque Arts & Crafts Village (336 SR 179, Suite A-102 in Sedona). It is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call 928-282-8877 or visit www.rowegallery.com