Colleen Ringrose art exhibit at SCC explores watermarks | Arts & Culture

Southeastern Community College will hold a public reception on Feb. 25 from 5-7 p.m. to mark the opening of an art exhibit featuring work inspired by watermarks and wall papers from the 1930s.

Artist Colleen Ringrose created the collection of encaustic paintings by combining the ancient art of wax painting with the computer technology of digital copy transfers. Her work focuses on the intersection of pictures of people and text.

These specific works were inspired by a book for stamp collectors from 1936.

“The watermark is a thin place in the paper and can only be seen by turning the stamp over and washing it with Benzene,” said Ringrose. “Only then will these small designs appear. In my new paintings I present them as modern icons set off by the explosions of color.”

Ringrose is a painter and mixed media artist living in Wilmington.  She holds an MFA and MA from John F. Kennedy University, where she studied with William T. Wiley and Gordon Onslow Ford. She also holds a BA in painting from San Francisco State University, where she studied with Robert Bechtel and Richard McLean. Ringrose has had solo shows in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Hawaii and Wilmington. She has been in numerous national group shows and designed and painted several award-winning murals in San Francisco.

The exhibit will be on display through April 5, Monday through Thursday, from 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. and Friday from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. The Upstairs Gallery is funded by the SCC Foundation.

For more information about the exhibit or the SCC Art Program, call September Krueger at (910) 642-7141, ext. 379 or email september.krueger@sccnc.edu.