Apex artist Beth Barger opens “Carolina Sights and Sounds” featuring paintings that celebrate North Carolina; our way of life and our relationship with nature from the coast to the mountains.

Meet the artist at a free reception at The Nature of Art on Friday, August 14 from 6 to 8 p.m. Drum with Rhythmicity, an African percussion band. The show is on display through August 31.

Beth enjoys oil painting as her creative outlet while working for an international corporation.

With a fine arts major in graphic design, Beth’s career has taken many twists and turns through a variety of fields, but the common threads throughout her varied career have been creativity, right-brained thinking and comfort with finding answers in “shades of gray”.

“My work focuses on the spirit of life and the relationships between people and nature, hard and soft, light and shadow,” said Beth.

As a third generation artist, Beth did not begin painting until she attended a plein-air painting workshop in Brittany, France with her mother, an accomplished oil painter.

Since then, Beth continues to enjoy painting on location where she can capture the smell in the air, the warmth of the sun, and the spirit of the scene around her.

“These oil paintings celebrate North Carolina. As the world becomes more global, more automated and technical; art created with heart and hands is more engaging; a truer reflection of the human spirit,” she said.

Beth was born in Syracuse, New York. As a Navy dependent, she enjoyed living in a variety of coastal towns before she settled in Apex.

Her work has been displayed at Visual Arts Exchange and Local Color Gallery in Raleigh, The Nature of Art, Plein Air Carolina Arts United Showcase in Lexington, and at IBM Employee Art Shows in RTP and New York. The show is on display through August 31.

The Nature of Art is located in Sunset Lake Commons, 5229 Sunset Lake Rd in Holly Springs.

For details contact Judie at (919) 387-9448 or www.TheNatureOfArtFrameShop.com.