Eric McRay bio:
McRay received a BFA degree at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, where he earned a four-year scholarship for his artistic talent. A native of Washington, DC, McRay moved to North Carolina and has been exhibiting since 1987.
McRay’s artistic career has been featured on TV and radio programs, and in numerous newspapers, magazines and websites. The Raleigh News & Observer named him one of the “Artists to Watch”. McRay has received feature articles in Fortune Small Business, Art Business News, Our State Magazine and Southern Living Magazine.
Some of his collectors include the SAS Institute, American Tobacco Campus, North Carolina Central University Art Museum, Duke University Medical Center, Duke Health Raleigh Hospital, NC State University, UNC – Chapel Hill and Western Wake Hospital, as well as many private collectors locally, nationally and internationally. Also, McRay was privileged to participate in the Art in Embassies Program, which displayed his works in the US Embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark.
ericmcray.com
Exhibition Title: "Months & Years"
McRay blends the verve and rhythms of the Bebop jazz age, nature, spiritualty and sensuality within non-objective abstraction. Thus, paintings focused on subjective emotional expression with emphasis on spontaneous creative action.
Why abstract? My story...
"During a middle school field trip to the Corcoran Art Museum, I was introduced to the color field paintings of African-American artist, Alma Thomas and later as an adult to the works of Ed Clark. These experiences forever changed my understanding of abstract art."
Washington Color School was a visual-art movement of the late 1950s through the late-1960s centered in Washington, D.C., the Washington Color School describes a form of abstract art that developed from color field painting, itself a form of abstract art that explored ways to use large solid areas of paint, as exemplified by the work of Mark Rothko and Helen Frankenthaler.