Hunt Gallery to Host: Dixie Hoggan & Pat Forbes — East Meets Southwest

From April 20 to May 5, 2017 the work of two Mary Baldwin alumnae of the Class of 1967 will be on view at Mary Baldwin’s Hunt Gallery: Dixie Hoggan & Pat Forbes — East Meets Southwest.

Dixie Hoggan and Patricia Forbes graduated from Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, Virginia, as art majors in 1967.

Dixie Hoggan is a painter, photographer, writer, and travel professional. She earned her MFA in Painting and Drawing from Virginia Commonwealth University. In addition, she has worked for over thirty years as a travel planner for universities and museums and has traveled to more than 130 countries. Her travels provide opportunities to collect rich and diverse images that have influenced her life as well as her painting and photography.

Hoggan writes the following of her work:

Much of my recent work is a result of a rare opportunity to fulfill a lifelong longing—to sail across the Indian Ocean, and to attempt to capture images at this point in time. Now, for years, water has been an aesthetic lure. I have been drawn to observing constantly changing light and color on moving bodies of water and then to orchestrate these observations onto a surface with oil paint. I enjoy a mirror-like surface that is reflective and color rich, and I use gesture combined with glazes to build an all-over surface. A fixation is mixing color and experimenting with new color combinations as well as paint handling. I employ formal elements, such as horizon lines, ripples, waves, and points of land, which create literal associations.

Patricia Forbes lived and worked in the mid-Atlantic prior to moving to Albuquerque in 2001.She has also spent time in Michigan, Germany, and France along the way. Her studies in studio art include participation in the College Art Study Abroad program in Paris, France, where she studied drawing and painting. In 1985 she completed studies in photography at Northern Virginia Community College in Sterling, Virginia. In 2007 ALBUQUERQUE THE MAGAZINE selected her as Best Local Artist and in 2008 and 2011 as Best of the Rest. She was a featured artist on HGTV’s “That’s Clever!” where artists demonstrate intriguing art projects and techniques.

Pat describes her work as follows:

Elements of southwestern nature – wide open skies, sweeping vistas, stars, ground, leaves, flowers, earth colors – became horizontal paper bands over thirteen separate painted, collaged, textured panels. Each panel would elicit an experience of a different part of my exotic New Mexico, and each panel would stand on its own and work in ensemble with the others.

A reception will be held for Dixie Hoggan and Pat Forbes from 2 to 3:00 p.m. on Friday, April 21 in Hunt Gallery. The public is invited to attend.

Hunt Gallery is dedicated to the exhibition of contemporary work in all media by regionally and nationally recognized artists.