BRIT is pleased to welcome artists Trailer McQuilkin and Ann Ekstrom to the Madeline R. Samples Exhibit Hall for Two Views which will be in residence from August 31 – October 11, 2018.
A native of New Orleans, McQuilkin has lived and worked in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, for the past 35 years. In 1969 the artist began experimenting with methods of creating metal wildflower sculpture eventually settling on a blend of several artistic techniques. The product of this art form is unique; each sculpture is one of a kind, with its own individuality and its own beauty.
McQuilkin, who is largely self-taught, produces complex and beautiful micro-habitats. His meticulous study, and subsequent recreation, of each plant have left us a great legacy of these fragile plants and their environments, which many of us will never have the opportunity to see.
Ann Ekstrom’s paintings are a lot like looking into a drawer full of vintage bakelite and celluloid buttons, pins, baubles and beads – just magnified to a grand scale. She preserves pieces of costume jewelry, tiny toys, highly collectible forms of wearable art and other odd bits of ephemera by enlarging them on canvas, then expertly combing them for creative and unusual still lifes, giving her subjects a new life of their own.
Her highly trained eye for color, pattern, and texture is evident in her meticulously arranged paintings of small objects that beg to be examined closely. Expertly controlled, her palette, her shading technique, and understanding of light and form make even her small canvases take on a presence of their own.
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