City Art Gallery is celebrating 40 years in business! And we are celebrating throughout the year with spotlights on the artists who have helped shape this gallery. Richard Fennell is most widely known for the luminous landscapes, interiors and still life’s he has painted during the past four decades while based in the communities of Whitsett and Grassy Creek, NC.
A graduate of both UNC Greensboro and ECU, Fennell’s vivid palette and Impressionist paint handling that are most often associated with his style are the result of a lifelong aesthetic drive. Fennell explains, “My work, as personal as it is, is basically the study of light upon form and space. In pursuit of this study, I try to merge a visual truth of what is seen with basic abstract elements inherent in both painting and nature.”
Recognized as one of the state’s leading colorists, his highly personal vision conveys “not only the landscape but also the elements that make it what it is”. His large paintings of marshes and mountains with bright hues and expressive brushstrokes evoke the influence of Impressionism. The study of light in his interior scenes and still life’s conveys a very particular atmosphere that would speak to many readers. His iconic paintings of houses in different corners of the state such as Tazewell, Grassy Creek, Hyde County, Scottsville and Nag’s Head are lush, light-filled paintings that allow the viewer to see anew the architecture of rural homesteads and small towns that are rapidly disappearing in the Southern landscape.
Fennell’s portrait work has garnered him numerous awards and recognition including receiving the Virginia Theological Seminary’s prestigious Dean’s Cross.
While still a graduate student, Fennell’s work was purchased by the North Carolina Museum of Art and soon entered the rosters of corporate and public collections across the Southeast including the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Washington, DC; the Kenan Collection, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; the Greenville Museum of Art and UNC Rex Hospital, Raleigh to name a few.
