TIMELESS

Group Exhibition

August 22 - September 19, 2025

Marissa Madonna, "Timeless Collection", Acrylic and Colored Pencil on Hot Press Watercolor Board, 11.75x11 in., 2014

Marissa Madonna

Artist Statement

My artwork is very much inspired by visual storytelling. The thing I love most is capturing my subject’s likeness through vitalizing details – both on the surface of the artwork, as well as the narrative behind it. I often use a mixed media approach combining acrylic and colored pencil. Working this way combines the freedom of laying bold washes with the tight control of drawing. As the piece is built up in many thin layers, I can carefully explore all the details. Quilting these details together as a visual story is where I find my greatest artistic passion.

Artist Bio

Even at an early age, Marissa has shown an enthusiasm for illustration. She can recall spending hours creating and illustrating stories inspired by the many books her parents shared with her. That inspiration has led her to some of her greatest artistic passions, including children’s book illustration and portraiture. Marissa earned her BFA in Illustration at the Hartford Art School in Connecticut, where she found new inspiration in her professors. While there, she received many distinctions for her work, including best portfolio in each of her departmental portfolio reviews. She has also had the honor of having her work featured in numerous exhibitions, including the Society of Illustrators Annual Student Scholarship Competition in New York City. Since graduating from Hartford Art School, Marissa has continued to follow her passion as a freelance illustrator and portrait artist. After completing her first children’s book illustration project, she went on to be featured in numerous publications and television appearances. Her projects have included collaborations with ESPN, as well as creating illustrations for Hartford Symphony Orchestra’s yearly concert production “Tales of Halloween”.

Tara Weymouth, Thumps, Oil on Paper, 18x24, 2025, $525

Tara Weymouth

Artist Statement

Tara translates her lived experience onto the canvas in a quest for self-knowledge & understanding. She seeks to make peace with the complex and intertwined feelings of joy, memory, grief, beauty, doubt, and wonder that make up a life. Drawing from sources ranging from her environment, daily encounters, current events, pop culture, and memory, Tara captures and synthesizes these constant yet fleeting impressions in her abstract work.

Artist Bio

Tara developed a deep reverence for nature, reflection, and her imagination during her childhood in Downeast Maine. She is a professional graphic designer and self-taught painter living in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Eric Purves, “The Path Back”, acrylic on birch cradle, 60”H X 36”W

Eric Purves

Artist Statement

A painting for me is a problem to solve rather than a task to complete. The galvanizing theme, usually derived from research, provides inspiration for the start of my process. Discovery and exploration are the motivation for the creative journey. This approach pushes creativity into a challenge that takes me beyond the mere manipulation of paint into decisions of “fit” and “pertinence”. These judgements are subjective in nature and are augmented by my years of exposure to art and artists. It is the attentive reflection of works of art from a variety of artists, media, concepts, and cultures that excite my sense of creativity.

Artist Bio

Eric interest in art began with visits to his grandmothers’ who were both painters. His early work was representational. He received his B.S. in Art from Missouri Stare University, M.F.A. from Wichita State University and Ph.D. from the University of Missouri. Early influences that brought a new direction to his ar were: Kandinsky CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL IN ART, Hoffman IN SEARCH OF THE REAL, Jung MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS, and others. The current work addresses themes from classical mythology to proportional systems to harmonic resonance. Eric has exhibited in one-person, group, and juried shows throughout the Southeast and Midwest including ND, SD, and NY.

Grayson Toal, "Follow the Swan to Wonderland," acrylic on canvas, 30"x30", $1200

Grayson Toal

Artist Statement

I’m drawn to the complexities of girlhood and womanhood. I paint to better understand and communicate their duality, drawing from my experiences growing up in the South. I’m interested in how the comfort and constraint of Southern values and traditions plays a role in the duality. Southern settings, motifs, feelings, and memory play a large role in how I conceive my work. Once the eyes are painted and she stares back at me in the studio, I’m curious: How does she feel? Is she at home? Does she like the way she looks? Does she want to be there at all? The not-knowing is what keeps the process alive for me. I don’t like to overthink what a painting or collection means; instead, I’m more interested in the quiet dialogue between me and the subjects.

Artist Bio

Grayson “Gerb” Toal (born 1999, Charlotte, NC) is an artist based in Wilmington, North Carolina. She earned her BA and MA in English from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. Gerb’s large-scale acrylic paintings have been exhibited in North Carolina, including shows at New Elements Gallery in Wilmington and Lantana’s Gallery in Southport. Currently, she serves as the in-house artist at True Blue Butcher & Table, where she both creates and curates artwork for the restaurant's collection. Her work has also been featured in Wilmington Magazine. Gerb currently lives and works in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Ro Fainstein

Artist Bio

Rochelle (Ro) Fainstein is a self-taught, intuitive artist who has lived and created in CT, NYC, TX, and NC. She travels often for inspiration.

Ro picked painting back up as an adult as a form of therapy to work through trauma. Today, her works span different media and include the celebration of quirky, extreme and joyful memories, as well as moments that are more trying.

Ro loves the sensorial aspect of artworks and encourages owners to run their hands across her more textural works, at least once, as they represent the ripples and scars of time and memory.

She has exhibited and sold works in NYC, Austin, Pittsburgh, and throughout NC.

Nitara Kittles, "Eroded 2", Inkjet print transfer on recycled Paper, ~ 13 x 16.5 in., $325

Mary Louise Ravese

Artist Bio

Mary Louise Ravese is a fine art photographer who draws inspiration from a variety of visual arts to produce photographs often described as “painterly”. For the past 25 years, she has traveled the world in search of her favorite subjects - landscapes, nature close-ups, interesting architectural details and abstracts. Mary Louise’s photography is in private, university and corporate collections in over 40 states and is exhibited nationally through art shows, galleries and shops. Her images have been used in calendars, magazines, books and websites including the National Parks Magazine and various projects with National Geographic maps. Mary Louise has been a speaker at photography conferences and is a regular competition judge and speaker for photography clubs from the Carolinas to the Royal Photographic Society in England. She enjoys teaching photography at all levels and leads online and in-person classes, as well as photography workshops.

Noah Dirsa, "Instructions", Mixed media on MDF, 26x46in., 2021, $1,000

Noah Dirsa

Artist Statement

As a professional creative, my work for corporate entities is often bound by external interpretations of data and market trends. This framework calls for visual solutions that meet strategic objectives, with creative freedom defined by those parameters. My personal creative is a departure from these constraints. The xeroxes I distort and layer with other media are intended to alter, or erase, that which is familiar around me. I want the audience to engage and draw their own conclusions, rather than present overt or prescriptive notions. This process of uncoiling my brain channels the subconscious into the work, fostering a deeper, more intimate engagement.

Artist Bio

Noah Dirsa never planned on becoming an Art & Design Director in the beauty and skincare industry. After graduating from a Philadelphia art school in 2006 with a degree in animation and a background in fine art, he set forth to find a studio in New York City. Instead, his career began in advertising, with the humble task of building ad units in Flash. While pursuing a professional education in design and art direction, Noah found fulfillment in his personal work, which allowed him to infuse a sense of soul and creativity into his practice, complementing the more structured demands of his day job. Eighteen years later, having advanced through the corporate ranks and resided in different cities, Noah continues to expand his craft in Wilmington, NC. Driven by introspection and a passion for the esoteric, he seeks to engage his audience on a profound visual level, aiming to resonate with them on a subtle, subharmonic frequency.

Elena Wright - Green Basket, Fused Glass, 11” wide by 9” high, 2022, $275

Elena Wright

Artist Statement

I’m an visual artist living and working in Wilmington, NC. Visual art has been important to me throughout life. As a child, I cut up socks to make dolls and constantly drew. I spent over 10 years sculpting with paper mache’ and was probably the only person to have a 5 foot blind justice paper sculpture in the living room, a full sized paper man on a swing, or a large paper Christmas tree. At work, I made and gifted papier mache’ two dimensional wall hangings.

In 2001, a year before retiring from a technical and programmatic position in the Defense Department, a six-week adult education class in stained glass ignited a love for all things glass. That led to 22 years of classes and work in leaded glass, glass casting, traditional glass painting, glass design, fused glass, traditional mosaics, and bead mosaics. Glass is a miracle substance. You can paint on it and with it, bend, it, shape it, cast it, melt it, carve it, cut it, encase it in lead or copper foil, turn it into beads, or cut it into pieces and use it in mosaics and glass collages. In Virginia, a week long lost wax glass casting class with Milon Townsend led to casting in glass. Glass casting requires first sculpting the desired final product using wax or clay. This led to multiple sculpting classes. Sculpting classes led to years of life drawing at both the Lorton Workhouse Art Center in Lorton, VA, and the Camerorn Art Museum in Wilmington. I am fortunate to have a home studio where I make cast glass (sculptures) and fused glass bowls, platters, and panels, along with mosaics and glass collages which are assembled on painted backgrounds and accentuated with tiles, sculpted elements, found objects, and beads. I think an accurate description of my approach would be a personality type I heard of in a TED talk. I am a proponent of multipotentiality. This is a person who studies and works in multiple disciplines and then combines them into something new. I may fail at times, but the thrill is in the trying.

I need to make things; it is a compulsion. The concept of turning an idea into something that physically exists in the world is irresistible. I agree with Elizabeth Gilbert’s idea in her book, “Big Magic,” that Inspiration is something that circulates around the world looking for a receptive person to bring it into creation. I love incorporating new products and working in both two and three dimensions. Every day I work because there are at least 50 more ideas waiting to be born. I am grateful.

Ulrika Leander

Artist Statement

I grew up in Southeastern Sweden where the rich history and tradition of textile art became part of my consciousness at a very early stage of my life. I am drawn to weaving by its very complexity as an art form and by the fascination of the gradual transition of my watercolor design, over many months of patience and totally absorbing effort, into a large-scale tapestry which expresses aesthetically the full intensity of my inspiration. For me, watercolor is the gateway to tapestry and as the design evolves, I am also thinking about the transition to the tapestry medium, the range of yarn colors and tones that will be needed and the intensification of colors that occur when the image is transposed to the much larger surface of the tapestry. By blending multiple threads of varying thickness and color tones, I can faithfully render the subtle changes in tones and intensities of the watercolor. Contemporary Tapestry Weaving is located in the historic, picturesque community of Norris in East Tennessee where the mountains meet the water.

Artist Bio

Ulrika Leander was born and educated in Sweden. She wove her first tapestry at age 13 and followed her artistic passion through 5 years of studying textile art and interior design to earn her MA at the HV College of Textile Art and Design in Stockholm. Ulrika finds her inspiration in the colors, forms and movements in the natural world and her work is all about the joy, peace and tranquility that comes with the contemplation of Nature. Ulrika’s tapestries have been widely exhibited and commissioned for private collections, corporate and public buildings. Examples include, the US District Court of the District of Columbia Washington, DC, Northrup Grumman Corp. Baltimore, MD, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center Cincinnati, OH, and St Matthews Lutheran Church Washington, DC and Lucille Packard’s Children’s Hospital at Stanford, CA. She was invited to participate in the Art in US Embassies Program with one of her large tapestries chosen for the US embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Lucile Packard’s Children’s Hospital, Stanford, CA.

Paul Bhajjan