Carnegie Hall’s October/November/December Exhibits continue with three galleries showcasing the works of regional artists. The Museum Gallery (adjacent to the Hamilton Auditorium) features “Solitary Reflections” by award-winning artist Robert Singleton.
The Museum Gallery will feature oil painter Robert Singleton’s “Solitary Reflections.” Singleton, a West Virginian by choice, has been painting from his remote mountaintop home in picturesque Hardy County for more than 40 years. A nationally recognized artist, Singleton moved to West Virginia in 1978 in search of privacy, time, and space. His work is represented internationally in prestigious private and public collections. In 2022, Singleton was named a Master Artist Fellow by the Tamarack Foundation for the Arts.
According to Singleton, he recently was in the process of updating his résumé when it occurred to him that a résumé is as impersonal as the paper it is written on. It is a lot of dates and events. These events, however, are the results of dreams, desires, and passions which is a more accurate portrait of who this person is. In recent years, the who and why has become far more important than the what.
“I can honestly say . . . at this point in my nearly 87 years of life, the egocentric drive for artistic recognition has declined. As I have matured, I have come to understand that perhaps recognition of self by self is the substance of actuality and authenticity,” states Singleton.
“On this journey called life as we become older and more accepting of ourselves. The need to prove or validate our existence through other people is no longer consequential. All that matters is the truth of who we are and loving that person along with our fellow human beings unconditionally. I personally feel the single beneficial motivation of life centers upon the compassion of the connections we share with our fellow humans.”
In the summer of 2012 after more than a ten-year hiatus from painting, he rediscovered the pure joy of the creative emergence, and it was at this juncture of his life at 87 years, that he paints full-time and shares the results in this collection of new works.
“My life’s journey is reflected in the art . . . the events that caused a transformation of both the art and the artist . . . from Abstract Expressionism to a transcendent expression of Light,” he adds.
The exhibits are free and open to the public, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. and run through the end of December. For more information, please visit carnegiehallwv.org, call (304) 645-7917, or stop by the Hall at 611 Church Street, Lewisburg, WV.
Carnegie Hall programs are presented with financial assistance through a grant from the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History and the National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts.
