There are a fair number of similarities between the South Carolina Lowcountry and the Chesapeake Bay on the Eastern Shore of Maryland where artist Julia Rogers grew up. Both feature marshes and open expanses of water populated by large packs of migrating birds, and other fauna and flora. Both areas are also, in Rogers’ estimation, the perfect inspiration for any devoted wildlife artist.
As the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition (SEWE)’s featured artist for 2022, Rogers feels a good deal of responsibility, not only to best represent herself and her work, but also a sense of duty to the community of dozens of artists taking part in the annual exhibition.
Rogers got her start painting as a kid. Each year, her family attended Maryland’s equivalent to SEWE, the Waterfowl Festival, where she would spend hours perusing the artwork.
“You could do this,” she remembered her parents telling her. She majored in fine art in college and began building up a reputation through different exhibitions and paintings that drew from trips around the world.
“It just snowballed from there,” Rogers said. “I love the wildlife, but my love for the art is equal.”
Rogers first brought her work to SEWE in the 1990s, and said she is excited to be back to see how the event has changed. Her featured piece, “Golden Light,” was drawn from a gathering of swans she witnessed just a few miles from her house on the Miles River.
“It felt like Charleston to me: elegant, colorful, classic,” Rogers said of the painting.
Despite the frigid temperatures she braved to catch sight of the migrating swans, Rogers is a big fan of working outside. This style, typically called plein air painting, is a way to capture a moment in time and space — through light, emotion and tone.
A shared passion
Kathleen Dunphy, this year’s guest artist at SEWE, shares Rogers’ love for outdoor work. A resident of northern California, this perhaps comes as no surprise considering the consistently beautiful natural landscapes Dunphy has to work with right outside her door. Indeed, one of the things that drew her to painting in the first place was the ability to depict the emotional depth of animal life that sometimes can only be captured in a single instant.
“When I go outside to do plein air [painting], I’m trying to catch that moment in time and put it on canvas,” Dunphy said. “If I catch that certain quality of light and that certain feel on canvas, I feel like I’ve tricked time. I’ve grabbed something and saved it.”
Dunphy describes her artistic journey as a “winding road that led me straight to where I am.” Several years ago, while living in Alaska, she began painting portraits of dogs and hanging them in veterinary clinics, attracting the occasional commission. Her budding success led her to the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, where she crystalized her love for the craft and further honed her skills.
This year will be Dunphy’s first at SEWE, and she said she’s looking forward to making time to meet other artists and take in their work.
“I truly love painting and I truly love animals and to have the opportunity to bring the two of those together on the canvas and share that love with people is such a wonderful thing,” Dunphy said. “It’s going to be an incredible weekend.”
Moreover, as a member of Artists for Conservation and The Society of Animal Artists, SEWE’s mission is one that resonates closely with Dunphy.
“Animals have incredibly complex, deeper lives than maybe any of us would give them credit for,” she said. “The more we can show an appreciation for that and open people’s eyes to it, the more empathy we can have for protecting the lands that they have and keeping places clean and preserved and untouched so they can continue to thrive.”
Local connections
Those messages also resonate with Mark Kelvin Horton. A Mount Pleasant resident, Horton was named the featured artist for SEWE 2021 and is back to enjoy the crowds that were absent from last year’s canceled event.
Since he was young, Horton said he always wanted to paint. While living in New York City and working as a graphic designer, he spent days at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s American Wing, studying the Hudson River School artists and works of tonalism, as well as the British landscapes of Constable and Turner. His work was self-taught, and he started off displaying it in the Charleston art gallery owned by his late brother.
“I’ve always been interested in skies and storms and atmosphere,” Horton said, a statement that comes through in works like “Grey and Gold,” which depicts a moody sky brewing over a marsh.
And while this isn’t Horton’s first SEWE rodeo, he said he’s looking forward to having people back in town for the event, not only guests but artists as well — a community that he said he’s missed during the pandemic.
“One of my favorite things about it is you meet all these artists from all over the world. It’s almost like a reunion. Everybody supports everybody,” he said. “We’re all doing what we love and come from a beautiful place and are showing it.”
Attendees can peruse the exposition’s various artwork through the recently released digital art book. There are several events throughout the week where individuals can view and purchase the featured art and meet artists, including the Signature Gala & Sale on 7 to
11 p.m. on Thursday, as well as the Copley Fine Art Decoy Exhibit and Auction Preview and several other preview hours.
On Friday from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m, artists will take part in the Quick Draw/Speed Sculpt and Auction, where a handful will have an hour to draw or sculpt a piece, which will then be live-auctioned.
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