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Appalachian Visionaries: Ollie Cox, Shawn Crookshank, D.R. Mullins and Fred J. Carter (1911 - 1992).

September 15, 2011 to November 5, 2011

Appalachian Visionaries introduces the work of a powerful group of visionary artists from the Appalachian region of southwestern Virginia. The exhibit includes paintings, sculpture and mixed media work by Ollie Cox, paintings by Shawn Crookshank and paintings and wood sculpture by D.R. Mullins, and the late intuitive master, Fred J. Carter (1911-1992). While the four artists differ in style and biography they are connected by geography and intersecting experiences. The artists have exhibited in regional museum and gallery shows, but have not exhibited widely outside of the area. As with most visionaries, their life stories inform their work and can be as incredible as their art.

Fred Carter was a self-taught genius, the master of what scholar Jack Wright calls “Appalachian Art Brut”. He began his serious artistic work in his fifties when he retired from running his hardware store in the coal town of Clintwood, Virginia. He could have rested on his laurels as a respected businessman and a skilled Appalachian wood-carver and stonemason. But he chose a more risky path. Carter had a vision, which he followed obsessively until his death in 1992. He was a renaissance man, who expressed himself in poetry, philosophy, painting, stone masonry, landscape architecture, storytelling, and most impressively, sculpture in wood. Unlike self-taught artists whose obsessions are intensely personal and even bizarre, emanating from religious visions or fantasy worlds, Fred’s work reflected a social conscience born of his experience. He grew up with a veneration for nature, tempered by depression-era progressive ideals. He was deeply affected by the bloody battle between the coal companies and the miner’s unions that swirled around him (the most notorious was in Harlan county, just over the Kentucky line). He developed a prescient view of technology’s destructive side, notably the ravages of coal mining on miners and nature.

In Clintwood Carter founded and built the Cumberland Museum, a large collection of pioneer tools and artifacts, with exhibits on Appalachian culture and history and an art gallery. He also established an annual festival called Pioneer Days. But the conservative town could not face Fred’s depictions of black-lunged miners and poisonous coal waste - realities they tried to ignore. Nor were his portrayals of Indians, Iraqi war refugees, and such figures as Martin Luther King and Vladimir Lenin well received. Fred’s was a lonely voice, but he persisted, producing a body of work that is emotionally touching and often breathtaking in scope. His sculptural masterpiece, “The Final Battle” depicts a 10 foot tall, anguished, old testament figure on one side of a huge piece of wood. The reverse shows the figure morphed into a horrific skeleton, defeated by the technological forces Fred saw destroying Clintwood and the wider world.

Since his death in 1992 he has been honored by several retrospective exhibits, most notably Unrecognized Artists at the William King Regional Arts Center in Abingdon in 1997, and Fred Carter Retrospective: A Primitive Visionary's World View, curated by DR Mullins for the 1912 Gallery at Emory and Henry College., Emory, Virginia, in 2000. Had his work been more widely viewed, Carter might be recognized today as one of the great American self-taught artists.

In the fall of 2013 the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Md., devoted an entire gallery to Fred Carter's work as part of their year-long thematic exhibit, Human, Soul & Machine: The Coming Singularity!. The work of Fred Carter is featured in the Summer 2014 issue of Raw Vision magazine with the article Appalachian Prophet by Len Davidson.

Shawn Crookshank and DR Mullins are both trained artists, though their work is anything but academic. D.R., a star football player recruited by the University of North Carolina, injured his knee freshman year. His athletic career over, he studied art and psychology. After graduation, he returned home to Clintwood, Va., where he opened a gallery. His unusual paintings were not well received in coal country, but he met the much older Fred Carter, who became his friend and mentor. D. R.’s art does not show a stylistic influence from Carter, but Fred’s philosophy and independence gave D.R. the confidence to follow his own eccentric vision. D.R. is a master of many styles, who often depicts fantastical images of humans transforming into nature. He has distinguished himself as a muralist. His most recent work is a commission for the entrance to the new Heartwood cultural/art center in Abingdon, Va.

Shawn attended Virginia Intermont College in Bristol, Virginia. Shawn is known for his intense calligraphic style of figures in collision, exemplified by his painting "Redneck Jones". Shawn is also a skilled chef who opened the Starving Artist Cafe, a restaurant and gallery in the mid-eighties. The Starving Artist was the artistic center of Abingdon for 23 years, showing new exhibits monthly. Shawn’s prolific output of signature “Jones paintings” coincided with running the gallery and restaurant and an active party life. The chattering Jones figures can thus be seen as a reflection of Shawn’s frantic world. Jones also evokes the iconic Southern “haint” or ghost figure. In the view of D.R. who worked with him at the Starving Artist, Shawn is haunted by many such demons. In 2009 both artists were featured in the exhibit, Pillars of Bohemia, at the William King Museum in Abingdon.

Born to one of the few African American families in Abingdon, Virginia, Ollie Cox got an education and got out of town. After graduating from Johnson C. Smith College in Durham, NC, he worked in a series of “corporate jobs”, but quit in his 40’s for a lusher life on the west coast. But family medical issues called him back to Abingdon a decade ago. He remained alienated by the town of his birth, but was befriended by Shawn and D.R., who serendipitously put some paint and cardboard in front of him. An outsider artist was born, and soon Ollie’s house was covered in exotic creations. An inveterate dumpster diver, Ollie painted on radiators, card racks, stage-sets, whatever, painting visions of a world somewhere between San Francisco and the cosmos. In 2007 his work was recognized with Inside the Outsider, an exhibition at the William King Regional Arts Center.

Appalachian Visionaries is presented with the assistance of Philadelphia outsider art scholar and writer Len Davidson, who is currently researching these artists. Works by the late Fred Carter are exhibited thanks to the courtesy of his family and the invaluable assistance of D.R. Mullins. Click here for a Philadelphia Inquirer review of the exhibit.

Ollie Cox (Abingdon, Virginia)
SKU: OCX-1119

Oil paint on automobile radiator.
(18" x 32"), 2008

"Judy and I knew Ollie's house as soon as we saw it. The front had a scattering of junk, and the enclosed back yard was dense with every kind of trash imaginable--old road signs, pieces of wood, metal from cars, unrecognizable stuff. But inside was mind boggling. When he showed us around, every room was cluttered with his art work. It was screwed to walls, lying on beds, leaning against and on top of the pool table, in the kitchen, bathroom, anywhere you could put it. He had painted on discarded Hallmark card racks, the glass door of a commercial washing machine, odd pieces of wood and much more.

''When I moved back to Abingdon, I discovered that there were a lot of objects,' he explained, 'wood, metal, and all kinds of trash just laying around. And some of it I thought was pretty cool. I tried to figure out what I would try to do with this stuff cause I hate to see it go to the junk yard. When I'm riding around it could take 20 hours to get home because every 10 seconds I'm stopping to pick something up.'

'Now that radiator,' he told me years later, after he left Abingdon, 'that's a rare piece. I only painted 5 or 6 radiators. That one I painted a landscape on one side and a gas station on the other."

From an unpublished manuscript by Len Davidson

$1800

Cityscape
SKU: OCX-1103

Ollie Cox (Abingdon, Virginia),
Oil and acrylic on recycled wood and metal
(31 1/2" x 47 1/4"), 2002

$1800

Untitled (Six Red Figures)
SKU: OCX-1104

Ollie Cox (Abingdon, Virginia),
Oil on recycled steel
(18" x 47"), 2001

10% off

$1500 $1350

Cosmic Shadowboxing
SKU: OCX-1107

Ollie Cox (Abingdon, Virginia),
Oil on wood.
(11 1/2" x 48 1/2" x 1"), 2002

$900

Cosmic Landing
SKU: OCX-1101

Ollie Cox (Abingdon, Virginia),
Oil and acrylic on wood
(25" x 14"), 2002

$400

Ollie Cox (Abingdon, Virginia)
SKU: OCX-1109

Ollie Cox (Abingdon, Virginia),
Acrylic on cardboard
(13" x 20"), 2001

$350

Untitled (Headdress 2) - Ollie Cox (Abingdon, Virginia)
SKU: OCX-1110

Ollie Cox (Abingdon, Virginia),
Acrylic on cardboard.  Framed.
(13 1/4" x 11"), 2001

$350

Untitled (Asteroid at the Beach)
SKU: OCX-1102

Ollie Cox (Abingdon, Virginia),
Oil on plywood
(17 3/4" x 17 3/4"), c.2005

$350

Ollie Cox (Abingdon, Virginia)
SKU: OCX-1108

Ollie Cox (Abingdon, Virginia),
Acrylic on cardboard
(16" x 34"), 2001

$225

Ollie Cox (Abingdon, Virginia)
SKU: OCX-1114

Oil on plywood
(11 1/2" x 8"), 2002

$225

Ollie Cox (Abingdon, Virginia)
SKU: OCX-1117

Oil on plywood
(6 1/2" x 6"), 2002

$175

Shawn Crookshank (Abingdon, Virginia)
SKU: SCR-3

Acrylic on board
(32" x 40"), 2006

$650

Product Status: 
Sold
Quo Vadis?
SKU: FCA-05

Quo Vadis
Fred Carter (1911 - 1992, Clintwood, Virginia)
Currently on exhibit at Emory and Henry College, Emory, Va.
White walnut sculpture, c.1985

Not for Sale (private collection)

Quo Vadis was a big white walnut tree. Standing and had a big fork that stuck up. Came a March wind and blew it down. I saw a thing there on the ground just all stretched out. I just looked at that tree and I saw a crucified force there. And that very day I got my chain saw and I cut it big and I drug it up to the front of there and I went to work on it. And I saw that thing just while it was down. Where goest thou? He's a mutant and he's in great trouble. It seems like everything is crying out. What is evil and wasteful is man.
Fred Carter, from 1985 interview.

NOT FOR SALE

Product Status: 
Not for sale
Behold my Miracle
SKU: FCA-06

Fred Carter (1911 - 1992, Clintwood, Virginia),
Walnut sculpture
(55" x 20"), c.1980

I was back, at Easter (1980), in the mountains, and a fellow was sawing up firewood. Now this was part of a walnut log... cut down 40 or 50 years ago... There was a limb going up through here about 10 feet long... I said, “Don’t cut that up for wood... I see something in this that I want to make... I see a pregnant woman... So I brought it home and began to look at it... the wood began to talk to me and tell me what it is...
So I will probably call this Behold My Miracle. That’s what the mother is saying,... “Behold me in the greatest moment of the miracle. 

Fred Carter, from 1985 interview.

NOT FOR SALE

Product Status: 
Not for sale
Dual Portrait (Fred and Vickie Carter)
SKU: FCA-07

Dual Portrait (Fred and Vickie Carter)
Fred Carter (1911 - 1992, Clintwood, Virginia),
Wood sculpture
(18 1/2" x 9") 1985

NOT FOR SALE

Product Status: 
Not for sale
Coal Miner
SKU: FCA-08

Fred Carter (1911 - 1992, Clintwood, Virginia),
Wood sculpture
(20 1/2" x 9 1/2")c.1980's

NOT FOR SALE

Product Status: 
Not for sale
Albert Einstein
SKU: FCA-09

Fred Carter (1911 - 1992, Clintwood, Virginia),
Wood sculpture
(18" x 9 1/2"), 1988

NOT FOR SALE

Product Status: 
Not for sale
The Final Battle - Fred Carter
SKU: FCA-2

Fred Carter (1911 - 1992, Clintwood, Virginia)
Currently on longterm loan to the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, and is exhibited as part of their permanent collection. It was the most spectacular piece in AVAM's 2014-2015 exhibit, "Human, Soul and Machine:  The Coming Singularity". It was previously on exhibit at Emory and Henry College, Emory, Va.
Wood sculpture, c.1990

The "Last Battle", it's the final battle between good and evil. On the one side you see the agonized face of man as he's being destroyed and on the other side you see the face of... it speaks for itself. it could be a dehumanized person or robot with a touch of the military and the evil is represented by the snake, or serpent which is devouring them both, when evil gets so far along in any society its self-destructive, it feeds on itself. And it is clear that evil is winning.

 

Fred Carter, from 1985 interview.

 

NOT FOR SALE

Product Status: 
Not for sale
Indian Chief
SKU: FCA-10

Fred Carter (1911 - 1992, Clintwood, Virginia),
Wood sculpture
(24" x 30 1/2") c.1980's

NOT FOR SALE

Product Status: 
Not for sale
Indian - Fred Carter
SKU: FCA-04

Fred Carter (1911 - 1992, Clintwood, Virginia),
Wood sculpture

Not for Sale (private collection)

NOT FOR SALE

Product Status: 
Not for sale
Shawn Crookshank (Abingdon, Virginia)
SKU: SCR-1

Oil on canvas
(54" x 66"), 1992

Shawn’s prolific output of signature “Jones paintings” coincided with running the gallery and restaurant and an active party life. The chattering Jones figures can thus be seen as a reflection of Shawn’s frantic world. Jones also evokes the iconic Southern “haint” or ghost figure. In the view of D.R. Mullins, who worked with him at the Starving Artist, Shawn is haunted by many such demons.
- from notes by Len Davidson

$3500

Product Status: 
Returned to Artist
Shawn Crookshank (Abingdon, Virginia)
SKU: SCR-2

Acrylic on board
(26" x 32"), 2009

$900

Product Status: 
Returned to Artist
Shawn Crookshank (Abingdon, Virginia)
SKU: SCR-4

Acrylic on canvas board
(24" x 30"), c.2006

Shawn’s prolific output of signature “Jones paintings” coincided with running the gallery and restaurant and an active party life. The chattering Jones figures can thus be seen as a reflection of Shawn’s frantic world. Jones also evokes the iconic Southern “haint” or ghost figure. In the view of D.R. Mullins, who worked with him at the Starving Artist, Shawn is haunted by many such demons.
- from notes by Len Davidson

Price on Request

Product Status: 
Sold
D. R. Mullins (Shady Valley, Tennessee)
SKU: DFM-1

Oil on canvas
(24" x 18"), 2008

Price on Request

Product Status: 
Returned to Artist
D. R. Mullins (Shady Valley, Tennessee)
SKU: DRM-2

Acrylic on styrofoam
(22" x 14"), 2008

Price on Request

Product Status: 
Returned to Artist
D. R. Mullins (Shady Valley, Tennessee)
SKU: DFM-4

Watercolor on paper
(9" x 12"), 2011
Framed

Price on Request

Product Status: 
Returned to Artist
Coal Miner
SKU: FCA-03

Fred Carter (1911 - 1992, Clintwood, Virginia),
Currently on exhibit at Emory and Henry College, Emory, Va.
Wood sculpture

NOT FOR SALE

Product Status: 
Not for sale
Ollie Cox (Abingdon, Virginia)

Oil and acrylic on recycled plywood panel
(62" x 24"), 2002

"Every painting in the house was out in the open, but we came to one sort of secret room that had a closed door. 'I guess you should see this, too,' he offered, not wanting to offend my wife. 'We're all adults.' He opened the door of this mystery space, yet another room jammed with paintings, but barely bigger than a closet.

Returned
Product Status: 
Returned to Consignor