VINSONart.com

contact:
Shawn Vinson: 404.939.2787 | email

education:
Brighton Art School, East Sussex, England - BA Degree, Fine Art/Painting, 1989
Lowestoft College of Art, Suffolk, England

exhibitions:
2013: Harlem Fine Arts Show - Feb 7-10, Historic Riverside Church, New York, NY
2012: Raw Art Fair, Rotterdam, Netherlands - Dex Gallery stand
Anticipation: A Nude and Figural Show - group show, dk Gallery, Marietta, GA
2011: Decatur ArtWalk - New Street Studios OPEN STUDIO, Decatur, GA
The 16th Anniversary Show, Matre Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Group show with Gary Goodman, The Basement Gallery, Boise ID
Mothers and Daughters, group show featuring Ruth & Ruby Franklin, dk Gallery, Marietta, GA
2010: Ruth Franklin/Byron Gin: New Work, April 23 - May 31, Adam Cave Gallery, Raleigh, NC
2009: The 14th Anniversary Show: Matre Gallery, Atlanta GA
One Woman Show of Paintings, Hrefna Jonsdottir Gallery, Lambertville NJ
2008: 50 Pastels: a one-woman-show, ARTart[08], VINSONGALLERY
2005: One-Woman-Show of Paintings & Drawings, VINSONGALLERY
2004: AAF Contemporary Art Fair - NYC, Gallery 71 stand
Under Different Circumstances, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Group Show
2003: Paintings & Drawings, Solo Show
2002: Hartman & Hartman Galerie, Gorinchem, Netherlands, Group Show
2000: VINSONGALLERY, Solo Show
1998: One Woman Show of Recent Pastels, Gallery 71, New York City
One Woman Show, VINSONGALLERY
1996: One Woman Show of Pastels, Gallery 71, New York City
Art Focus Gallery, Centrepoint, Singapore
Galerie Ruetz, Munich, Germany
Gallerie Naif, Tokyo, Japan
1992: Summer Exhibition , Riviera Gallery, East Sussex, England
Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, East Sussex, England
1991: Rye Art Gallery, East Sussex, England
Seen Galleries, Ltd., London
Riviera Gallery, East Sussex, England, Summer Exhibition
Northstore Gallery, East Sussex, England, Group show
Hastings Museum & Art Gallery, East Sussex, England
1990: Riviera Gallery, East Sussex, England, Summer Exhibition
1989: Brighton University, Degree Show, Solo Exhibition, Brighton, England
Cirencester Art Gallery, West Sussex, England
Pig and Fig Gallery, Brighton, England
1979: Steeple End Gallery, Suffolk, England
Suffolk Show, Suffolk, England

news:
Ruth's paintings featured in the remake of Steel Magnolias, starring Queen Latifah
sketches & paintings featured on Paramount Famous Productions' Mean Girls 2
paintings & charcoals featured on The Vampire Diaries

awards:
Kelloggs National Art Competition - The National Gallery, London, 1978
East Anglian Art Award

commissions & collections:
ASCAP - Nashville, AT&T – Atlanta, City of Decatur, Georgia, Deloitte & Touche – Tampa, Echo Media Group - Atlanta, King & Spalding - Atlanta, Larson-Juhl, Lenz – Decatur, Lightroom - Decatur, Price Waterhouse - Tampa, Roedean Girls School, East Sussex, England; Stockwell Films, London; Universal Studios Florida - Orlando, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Press & Media coverage:
VISUAL ARTS: OBJECT LESSONS: NEAT THINGS ON VIEW AROUND TOWN by : CATHERINE FOX
Staff | DATE: November 23, 2003 | PUBLICATION: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The (GA) | EDITION: Home; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution | SECTION: Arts | PAGE: K15

Diane Arbus as unsettling muse
Like many artists, Ruth Franklin uses other art to jump-start her own. For the paintings and charcoals in her lovely exhibition at Shawn Vinson Gallery (including the works above), she started with family snapshots, old master paintings and, most frequently and potently, the photos of Diane Arbus.

The late Arbus earned fame with discomfiting black-and-white photographs of people, often those marginalized in society. Franklin feels an empathy for Arbus' subjects, which comes out in her wonderful charcoal drawings -- a mix of careful description and elliptical line that emanates dignity. But when she makes a painting, she becomes more involved in the process of painting than in the subject. She introduces color, applied in broad, brushy strokes that render faces (critical to the Arbus effect) indistinct. Sometimes, she turns the photo upside down.

It's hard to know whether familiarity with the Arbus oeuvre affects how one reads these paintings. It seems that some of the individual subjects' oddness remains, especially in the awkward gestures of the mental institution patients. The tension between the tone and the juicy paint makes for interesting viewing. Through Nov. 29. 119 E. Court Square, Decatur. 404-370-1720

by Ed McCormack Editor-in-Chief, Artspeak - New York City, 1998

In the most recent pastels of Ruth Franklin we see a considerable broadening in scope on the part of this gifted artist from Kent, England, who, since 1994, has lived and worked in Atlanta, Georgia. Her glowing palette has grown more subtle in its hues, her use of chiaroscuro has become more dramatically pronounced, and her subject matter has taken on an even deeper suggestiveness.

Those familiar with her work since her first U.S. solo show at Gallery 71, New York City, in 1996, should be delighted by Franklin’s continued mastery of interior scenes wherein warm burnished tones evoke a sense of domestic serenity recalling the nineteenth century poet Royall Tyler’s famous lines "Why should our thoughts to distant countries roam / When each refinement may be found at home?"

Even while evoking genteel comforts, with their glowing floor-lamps and overstuffed furniture, however, Franklin’s most recent interiors are so boldly composed that one can appreciate them for their formal qualities, as one would a powerful abstraction.

Also quite remarkable are a new group of suburban landscapes in which the artist creates virtual magic through her heightened use of light and shadow, evoking a mood that, while rooted in the commonplace, verges on the surreal. Indeed, one discovers heretofore unknown affinities between Ruth Franklin and Giorgio de Chirico in the haunted quality she brings to unpeopled street scenes of a dream-like allusiveness. There is, at the same time, an almost noir quality to some of Franklin’s latest suburban street scenes, with their affluently aloof houses, darkly shadow-dappled lawns, and their shuttered small town store-fronts. Mysteries seem to lurk behind their masked facades; their atmospheres suggest all the dramatic resonance of sites described in the crime novels of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.

But it is as a creator of forms and a colorist, rather than a storyteller, that Franklin finally excels. Her palette is dominated by glowing ochers, ambers as clear as beer, and other golden hues, each with its own unique tonal qualities. These are complemented by deep reds, vibrant blues, and a subtle range of earth colors that contribute to the special warmth that emanates from her compositions. Indeed, Franklin’s pictures are so richly accomplished that they can be favorably compared to a diverse range of past masters, from Chardin to Georges Rouault. However, her images are ultimately unique and distinguished by the inimitable stylistic stamp of her own sure hand.

In these, her most recent and most evocative pastels to date, Ruth Franklin, whose work is in many important private and corporate collections the world over, continues to explore and expand upon the themes that have gained her a growing following. She is an important contemporary artist with a unique vision.

Ruth Franklin was born in Kent, England, in 1964, and was raised on the country’s east coast in Suffolk. She was accepted into the Brighton Art School in 1983, where she obtained her Bachelor of Arts Degree.