A Preview Exhibition of Paintings by Scott Nurkin
on view at the Center for the Study of the American South through Summer 2013
To read essays about select musicians, enter full screen mode, then click on the “show info” button at the top right of the slideshow. (Clicking on the slideshow below will take you directly to Flickr.)
About the Artist:
Scott Nurkin is a musician and artist from Charlotte, NC. He earned his BFA in painting and drawing from UNC and studied painting at the Lorenzo de’ Medici School in Florence, Italy. He currently runs Bona Fide Murals, a professional mural and sign company in Chatham County.
About the Portraits:
I came up with the idea of capturing these North Carolina musicians–many among the best of their genres–in their heyday. I pitched it to David Harvey (Pepper) when they decided to move Pepper’s Pizza to the new location. He thought it was a great idea, so I tried to paint as many as I could before I burned out–in exchange for free pizza and beer for life. Unfortunately, ‘for life’ ended a lot sooner than we had hoped when Pepper’s closed in March 2013. However, I am pretty sure I ate and drank my quota.
Most of the portraits are oil on wood, found objects, and canvas; some were done in acrylic. The size of the paintings was purely dictated by the frames I bought in bulk from a local thrift store.
About the exhibition:
For this preview exhibition, the Center for the Study of the American South invited UNC scholars and writers to contribute reflective and contextualizing essays on the people featured in these portraits. We hope these essays will inspire and provoke further conversation, exploration, and investigation of these performers, their music, and the rich traditions from which they come. These portraits are on display courtesy of the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Music, with special thanks to Mark Katz, chair.