Mother’s love of roses inspires Illingworth exhibit in East Wing Gallery

Release Date: 3/17/2006. Expired: 5/27/2006

Painter Linda Catherine Illingworth uses color as a tool to explore dimensions of the rose in her sixth solo show WHY ILOVEROSES: a Meditation on Beauty and Love, on display in the East Wing Gallery at The Renaissance Center in Dickson April 8-May 27.

An opening reception will be 6-7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 8.

Illingworth’s exhibit is dedicated to her mother, Leontine Catherine Hughes Illingworth, who lost her battle with brain cancer in October 1999 at the age of 73.

Her first rose drawing emerged as Illingworth and her mother sat together on a peaceful, sunny fall day in Atlanta.

“What makes roses so beguiling?” Illingworth asks. “They’re a study in contrasts, as they have thorns and sturdy stems with prickly leaves, yet are topped by fragile, gloriously colored, fragrant blossoms, the petals of which can be saved for potpourri even after the flowers are blown.”

Illingworth’s mother loved roses, fresh or blown, and she has created WHY ILOVEROSES in her memory.

“It can be argued that love is a form of attention, and by devoting her full concentration to a personal interpretation of the iconographic rose, Linda reaches across missing years toward the radiant love of her mother,” said Curtis Southerland, gallery curator at The Renaissance Center.

“I love art because, as Emily Dickinson says of the human mind, it is ‘wider than the sky.’ Art has heart and makes you feel. Something. Anything. Everything,” says Illingworth. “Art is an essential component of my spiritual, intellectual and creative existence. I pour emotional energy into my paintings... Art is how I love the world.”

Illingworth earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Florida in 1983 and worked as a medical anthropologist specializing in mental health.

She also has studied at the University of Illinois, University of North Carolina, Vanderbilt University and the North Caroline Museum of Art, as well as studying five years under Charles Brindley at the Cheekwood Museum of Art.

Her previous solo exhibitions include kissthesky and outsidelookingin at the Center for the Arts in Murfreesboro, rightasrain at TimeFrame Gallery in Murfreesboro, large & small at Murfreesboro City Hall and Map of My Human Heart at the Arts Council in Hendersonville. She has been a part of group exhibits in Murfreesboro, Nashville, Hendersonville and Cobb County, Ga.

WHY ILOVEROSES will be on display in the East Wing Gallery April 8-May 27. The Renaissance Center’s galleries are open 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday and admission is free.

For more information on exhibits at The Renaissance Center, contact Southerland at (615) 740-5519 or .

The Renaissance Center is a fine arts and technology education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.

Visit the Visual Arts Gallery page for more about the gallery.

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