Learn more about local artist Eric Fitzpatrick’s Southern Culture Series show at Hollins University.
Roanoke artist Eric Fitzpatrick says, with no hesitation at all, that his Southern Culture Series show at Hollins University is “the most important body of my work” ever presented. And that covers a lot of work and a lot of shows for the man who is generally considered Roanoke’s most popular artist.
This one is special because it confronts what is often a shameful past—and present—of being a Southerner, one where racism, religious fanaticism and hypocracy are in direct confrontation with kindness, tradition, musical and literary accomplishment and spiritual relevance.
The canvases in Fitzpatrick’s show are together for the first time in a single large room and there is power in their separation and distance. I saw them in his studio—which is hardly small—and they had only a fraction of their cumulative power. He uses words like “heartfelt,” “provocative” and “ambitious” to describe the effect and the intent. He says this show gives him the “first opportunity to see them across the room from each other and to watch people react.”
Two of the show’s pieces, “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” (feauring the African American experience in the old Dominion) and “When Heritage IS Hate” (a black man hanging with a Confederate battle flag behind him, among its images) are so controversial they were held out of the show for fear of creating what Fitzpatrick calls “a Red Hen moment,” referring to the Lexington restaurant that caused a recent firestorm of political outrage from the right.
Fitzpatrick strongly urges that those viewing the works read the explanations beside each painting, on which “I labored long and hard” to find the right words to explain their relevance, both literally and figuratively. There is a lightness to many of the works that “I hope makes them more palatable” without losing their message, he says.
The show runs from July 11 through Sept. 23 at the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins.
About the Writer:
Dan Smith is an award-winning Roanoke-based writer/author/photographer and a member of the Virginia Communications Hall of Fame (Class of 2010). His blog, fromtheeditr.com, is widely read and he has authored seven books, including the novel CLOG! He is founding editor of a Roanoke-based business magazine and a former Virginia Small Business Journalist of the Year (2005).
