Opening June 1, the new summer exhibition, “Imagine,” featuring three North Carolina artists, is the perfect antidote to the universal challenges of the past 15 months.
A humorous, political cartoonist in Baghdad, Iraq before moving to the United States, Ráed Al-Rawi has lived in Charlotte, NC for more than 30 years. He creates surrealist art and is an art instructor at Carolina Piedmont Community College. Inspired by his Iranian heritage, a deepening sense of history, and his imagination, “Coming to a Farm Near You” is a delightful, fanciful and humorous view of life.
Marcus Hamilton has been illustrating the nationally syndicated daily Dennis the Menace cartoon panel from his studio in Mint Hill, for the past 27 years. The story of how he went from a Norman Rockwell-inspired illustrator to a dedicated artist behind the beloved “Dennis the Menace” daily cartoon is the basis of “Two Dream Careers: Illustrator to Cartoonist.”
The oldest of five by her working-class Puerto Rican and Cuban parents, Natacha Sochat was born in New York City, and currently resides in Raleigh, NC. Sochat’s education is an interesting juxtaposition of medicine and art, leading her to a career in emergency medicine, while also painting full time and raising a family.
