New exhibits to open at Parkersburg Art Center Friday

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (WTAP) - The Four West Virginia Regionalists exhibit highlights the work of Tom Acosta, John Coffee, Frederick D. Hays, and Robert Walker, four artists from different parts of the state.

“These artists are considered regionalists, and that means that they are each depicting a piece of their world here in this Appalachian region in their own way with their own vision,” said Art Center Managing Director Jessie Siefert.

Art Center Managing Director Jessie Siefert said there’s a lot of value in sharing these depictions of the day-to-day parts of existence in West Virginia communities. “We often see many beautiful paintings of Dolly Sods and Blackwater Falls and the Babcock Grist Mill, and West Virginia is such a wonderful, wonderful place, but these pieces are sort of more intimate, and they depict each artist’s world closer to home,” Siefert said.

Siefert said there’s a lot of variety in the paintings as a result of each artists techniques and training, with three of the four being self taught.

Artist Frederick Hays grew up in rural Kanawha County. “I’ve been painting since I was eight years old,” Hays said. “When an elderly man in the neighborhood -- his wife died, and he gave me her oil paint set.”

Hays’s paintings are full of swirling neon colors. He said part of his goal as an artist is to preserve the memory of the hard-working rural community he grew up in. “My work is about kind of getting at that,” Hays said. “What it takes, the grit we had. I’m just trying to convey who we really are and where we came from.”

The Regionalists exhibit opens September 15 with an evening reception from 5 to 7. It will remain at the Art Center until October 7.

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