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Stark is an artist who paints color-drenched canvases in an
expressionist manner. His work was included in the seminal book
Twentieth Century Folk Art and Artists, written by Herbert W. Hemphill,
Jr., one of the founders of the American Museum of Folk Art in New York
City, and co-authored by Julia Weisman in 1974. Despite the early
artistic success that gave Stark the courage to continue painting, he
stopped for many years but recently picked up again and began showing
his work through various shows.
Without formal training, his paintings capture a mood and evoke a
feeling more than recreating the original subject. Though the style is
na ve, the subjects are refined. Lush gardens and overflowing
flowering bouquets, palatial rooms with lots of doors and windows and
the occasional, small person or scene sprawl across the entire surface
area. Interiors and exteriors make the viewer look into another life
and through the windowpanes to the other side.
Though the inspiration-and many of the images-comes from nature, the
feeling is not earthy but ethereal, with bright colors and pastels and
usually no empty white space. There is a lightness of spirit and sense
of freedom to the paintings-the colors don't have a dark side. Still,
the same childlike hopefulness and happiness brings a sadness that
comes from seeing such innocence, the idealism of a world far removed
from the reality of everyday life.
Paintings can only capture a small flicker of existence but, within
each, Stark tries to create a feeling of oneness, if only in a single
stroke. Like a note in a song that hits a certain way, the paintings
are a visual feast of colors for the eyes, and create a heartbreaking,
if not impossibly, beautiful world.
If art is a reflection of the artist, so too are these paintings a
reflection of Jeffrey Stark. With his white puff of mad professor hair
and matching beard, he makes a memorable impression himself. He
dresses of a time gone by, wearing trousers & tweeds in a jeans &
t-shirts world. The staples of his iconic uniform-tan pants and a
button down-are worn while he paints, gardens and even goes to the
beach. He is a character who stands out in a crowd and whose kindness
of spirit is so obvious that homeless people always know to approach
him even from afar. Though, like most people, his actual life doesn't
always live up to his dreams, through his art he has created something
tangible others can identify with in his expression of ever-elusive
beauty.
Our Art Gallery also has work by Reverend Howard Finster, Inez Nathaniel Walker, William Edmondson, Thornton Dial, Missionary Mary Proctor, Miz Thang, Nancy Valelly, R A Miller, Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Mose Tolliver, folk pottery and all the great outsiders new or old.
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