Art Night Out with artist Carlleena Person

Manny and I ventured out for our artsy date night and to our surprise not only was the art fantastic the artist was a sistah’

Bold, graphic, energetic and vivid with an urban twist is how I would describe Carlleena’s artwork. At first glance her work could be written off as simplistic but take a closer look and you can see the creative expression that creates interest in her work. You can see elements of the bold graffiti style lines that define her shapes and  her color palette of bright bold colors gives that childlike “whimsical” feeling she equates to her art.

Her exhibit was hosted at Escape hair and skin studio on 1440 South Tryon St. in uptown Charlotte. We were greeted at the door by a djembe drummer and a bass player who could be heard blocks away. The salon was not your typical salon. It was reminiscent of a gallery space which lent itself well to Carlleena’s art. There was also an assortment of refreshments (better than most offered at these sort’s of functions) and a cash bar. NICE!

The highlight of the event was her live art demo where she enlisted the help of  the exhibit goer’s to help paint one of her pieces. I got to paint the lips 😀 COOL!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After checking out Carlleena’s show we headed across the street to another exhibit hosted by the Charlotte Art League Gallery on 1517 Camden Rd.

The show was called “Primary Colors” works accentuating the use of red, yellow and blue the building blocks of color. This show was not as impressive as the previous in that the artwork although tied together by the use of primary colors I found there was no other unity. There were a few stand out pieces such as the portraits of Arthur Ashe and Angela Davis and my favorite being an abstract painting by artist Adrian Barrionuevo called “Sun and Shade”. We also met another creative artist named Wan Marsh who was a self-described wacky artist, that utilized a mostly green artistic approach. Her mixed media work incorporated salvaged frames, old books and papers, vintage wall paper and found objects. She was my kind of artist!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After our gallery crawl Manny and I decided to make a pit stop over to The Common Market this is a really cool spot to just chill, grab a drink or a deli sandwich and sit back and enjoy the artsy vibe. Thursday thru Sunday they have a DJ mixing it up on his iPod. Hopefully the next time we decide to hang there it will be just as cool! It really bought me back to my art school days at SCAD.

Had a blast with hubby. He is really a cool cat to hang with, look at some art and just chill. Hopefully in the near future we can  be able to support some of the artists by purchasing their work. Who knows we may end up owning a piece from the next great artist!