For the love of color

Jan. 28—Andrea Brunais's work is currently being displayed at Bluefield University (BU) in the Walter T. Shroyer Art Gallery until February 4.

The exhibit is called "Worlds Awash in Color," which Brunais said was a good representation of her and her art.

"My work is strong, saturated colors for the most part," she said. "I did 'Worlds Awash in Color' because I wanted to select my work that was really colorful for that exhibit."

This is not the first gallery Brunais has had work featured in as she is also a juried Tamarack artist, but the process of getting displayed in the two galleries is slightly different.

Brunais said she found out about the gallery looking to set up a new exhibit through Walter Shroyer, who the gallery is named after and former Art Director at BU.

"I recently joined the Appalachian Artists Association, and he (Shroyer) is actually a part of the group," said Brunais. "He told me to contact Heather Horn who is now the gallery director and is a former student of his about getting an exhibit there."

From there, Brunais did get in contact with Horn and was told to submit five pieces of work and an artist biography, and after that Horn would be able to decide between Brunais and a few other applicants for the gallery spot.

Brunais is not a Bluefield native, but she has lived here for around 15 years and really loves the area and its opportunities.

Before she was an artist, Brunais spent her career as a journalist.

"Most of my career was as a writer and editor for the newspaper chains Knight-Ridder, Media General and Creative Loafing," she said. "I retired three years ago. I worked 10 years at Virginia Tech, 2010-2020, as director of communications for Outreach and International Affairs."

In her time as a writer, she not only wrote many articles and journalistic pieces but also two novels, a book of essays, and co-authored a manual on media relations.

She was also recognized with several awards throughout her journalistic career from a Robert Kennedy Journalism Award to a Publishers Association Award and a Florida Press Club Best Commentary award.

It was not until after her retirement that she became an artist.

"I'd always been interested in art and loved color, and I had planned on taking this online art class after retiring. Then COVID hit, and I really got immersed in it because there was no where to go," said Brunais.

Brunais said that she never really considered herself a person that was good at drawing or visual art, but after taking her class and seeing the results, she gained a lot of confidence in her art.

"I always loved art and loved color, but its not anything that I thought I could do myself. I was always an art appreciator in the past."

She added, "I ended up during the pandemic painting all day, doing the course assignments and painting other images and scenes that I just really wanted to paint. I really wanted to do landscapes, and West Virginia has such beautiful landscapes, so I was actually very happy that first year of the pandemic because I was painting full-time."

A part of art that she really enjoyed was that she felt that she could relax and just have fun with it whereas in her journalism career, she had been very competitive.

"With art, I didn't want to think about being competitive and having to look at it that way because art is so subjective."

After really getting into her art, Brunais wanted to start sharing it with other people.

"I could look at some of my work and evaluate it and see that I had done a really good job on it," she said. "Once I realized that I had some capacity for it, I was really motivated to get my work our there."

"I'm also influenced by the fact that I don't want to hoard them."

She joined several Facebook artist groups for feedback and eventually started to sell a few of her pieces.

It was also around that time that she set the goal for herself to be juried into Tamarack.

Tamarack is an arts and culture center in Beckley that features just about anything an artisan can reduce from glass and wood to paint and fabric.

"In order to be able to submit for the exhibits, you have to be juried into Tamarack, which means you take your work, and they bring jurors to assess it and evaluate it," Brunais said. "If your good enough, you're in, and it gives you the right to compete in the exhibits."

Tamarack has several components to it, but the part that Brunais was focused on was the gallery.

"The gallery works a little differently. It does themed exhibitions every six to eight weeks I think," she said. "So they'll announce their theme, and the Tamarack juried artists can compete to have pieces accepted for those themes."

Brunais added, "I had to wait a little longer than most people because during the pandemic, Tamarack wasn't doing any jury sessions."

Brunais said she had known about Tamarack for a while before she had wanted to be a featured artist there.

"I was aware of it because I knew an artisan who made jewelry that was juried in, so I had some awareness of it and had been there," she said. It seemed like a high, high goal, and I wasn't sure that I would be accepted. I was really nervous when I went up for the jury session, and the juror just really loved my work and so I was able to get in right away on the first try."

Brunais said she really enjoys being able to work with Tamarack because it helps to keep the drive to succeed and evolve as an artist there.

"I don't feel like I've always achieved with Tamarack because its not like you're in and you can relax. You have to compete every time, and some of their themes are challenging and things that I could never think of doing," she said.

Her goal that she has set for herself and her art is just to keep "working to get better and to be the best I can."

"I guess in a way it's always like when am I gonna paint that perfect painting," she said.

Along with the current BU exhibit her work is also featured at Tamarack now as well. She has three pieces being displayed in the gallery themed "Purple."

Brunais said she really enjoyed doing both of these exhibits because it gave her the chance to participate in a part of art that she really enjoys which is color.

"Being able to play with color makes me feel alive. Having a whole new world of expression feels magical," said Brunais. "I probably got a little carried away in my artist's statement, but here's what I say: "Enchanted by the wisdom and order inherent in even the most chaotic of landscapes, I love the natural world's beauty and its kaleidoscope of colors, knowing that almost any artist can only hope to weakly emulate the astonishments of creation. Can the artist hint at their mysteries, evoke some feeling of resonance, perhaps akin to what one feels at the welling up of a concerto, the hint of a summer breeze, the glint of sunlight on flower petals, the industry of bees?"

She also added, "There's also the fun of meeting new people, which comes with outreach to galleries."

She really enjoyed getting to work with Horn with the gallery at BU, and she said she really hopes people go and enjoy her work there.

The Walter T. Shroyer Gallery at BU is located in Lansdell Hall, and it is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. for those interested in viewing Brunais's exhibit.

— Contact Kassidy Brown at kbrown@bdtonline.com.