 MEET THE ARTISTS We are a co-operative of over 120 artists named the Associated Artists of Southport. We have a book that sits at our gallery entrance with our biographies, photos, and examples of our work. This online page will begin to introduce our members twice a month. Please be curious, come into the gallery, ask our artists that are working that day; what pieces are theirs? what are their techniques? and what are their favorite subjects? Franklin Square Gallery is a welcoming part of the Southport community and we welcome you to come in often to explore its many treasures, PEOPLE AND ART!!  |
Denise Chadurjian - Potter
I’m a Wilmington, NC-based artist and a member of the Coastal Carolina Clay Guild. My art works have been displayed at the Cameron Art Museum (Wilmington), the Grey Gallery (Eastern Carolina University, Greenville), and the Franklin Square Gallery (Southport). My artistic journey began at an early age, inspired by my mother’s paintings and drawings, the great works of the Masters, and the forests of New York’s Hudson Highlands in which I roamed as a child. I sketched and painted most of my life but came to clay as my medium of choice, finding it to be the most freeing in terms of artistic expression. The earthy smell of it, the way it warms and elasticizes under the hands, the feeling of freeing the images within, simply invokes joy. Since finding clay, and it finding me, I see the world differently, through a dazzling lens of shape and form. Nature-based (flowers, animals) and primitive (Native American, fossils) themes are prevalent in my ceramic art, whether it be sculpture, masks, functional ceramic-ware or a combination. I form and build by hand, from clay block, slab or coil, sometimes combining other mediums into the final piece. The works I create are personal. I reach down into myself to display the beauty I find ever present in the world. Some creations may resonate deeper for me than others. But the attention to detail and reverence for the art is always there. I feel humbled and very lucky to have had the opportunity to learn from some master North-Carolinian ceramic artists, like Hiroshi Sueyoshi and Don Johns. Their artistry, patience, and skill inspire me to be a better artist. | Prentiss Halladay - Painter
 A graduate of Arcadia University, Prentiss Halladay has been painting in acrylics, and watercolors, and mixed media for over 30 years. She studied art at Piedmont Virginia Community College and at the University of Virginia, and has participated in workshops under the auspices of Frank Jennings, John Szekes, Elaine Hahn, Tony Couch, Catherine Wilson Smith, Don Andrews, Tony Van Hesselt, Margaret Hoyback, Fran Larsen, Judi Betts, and Ryan Fox among others, away and in Southport. A native New Englander, Pren moved to Southport, North Carolina, in 2004 from Illinois, where she taught watercolor workshops for the Prairie Art Alliance. In the mid- 1990’s she taught art for the Pittsylvania School System in Virginia. She has won awards for her work in Charlottesville and Halifax, Virginia, in the Sangamon Watercolor Exhibit in Springfield, Illinois, and more recently won the Oak Island, North Carolina, Beautification Painting Contest for her watercolor “Flowers and Light.” More recently, she won first prize in the juried Summer Regional show in Southport for her collage “Brunswick Stew.” |
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