Hill’s “Fayetteville Now & Then” Art Exhibition Opens March 1st

For Judy Elias Hill, her new show “Fayetteville Now & Then” has been a labor of love. The exhibit opens on Saturday, March 1 from 3-6 p.m. at the Red & White Gallery on Fayetteville’s historic square. You’re invited to come and meet Judy and see this wonderful look at our little community. The exhibit runs from March 1 through April 5. The work can now be viewed online at www.redandwhitegalleryonline. com.

“What I’ve been painting is more than two-dimensional representations of houses and buildings around Fayetteville built by generations since 1844,” she states. “It’s much more. It’s years of family hopes and dreams. I only wish I could superimpose all the history of each individual place into each of my individual paintings. And not just dates and styles and peoples’ names, but the reality of time that has passed from then to now. I hope people will think about this as they view the show.”

Judy lives just outside Fayetteville, where she paints almost daily in her well-lit studio. She has traveled a lot, across the country and Europe as well, but the inspiration for this show is just down the road. Judy painted the houses and buildings she found interesting and researched older photos of the same structures such as the Sarrazin Store, the Zapp Building or the Kubena House.

She has said this before, but it is still true today: “I paint every day,” Judy says, “My art gives purpose to my life. I see things in everyday life as paintings — the colors in the shadows, the light coming through the trees, or on buildings, and the colors in the clouds. Life is a painting.”

And she sees meaning in the ordinary. She sees an older house and thinks about all the people that have lived there, that made it home. The building that has had many shops inside its walls and the stories that have been shared there.

Judy’s paintings are in many private and corporate collections throughout the United States and have been exhibited from the Carolinas to Texas.