Beth Keener-Flanery is a visual artist from West Virginia, practicing graphic design, painting, printmaking and more. Keener-Flanery supports her creative work with an A.S. in graphic design, a B.A. in fine art and printmaking, and an M.A. in art history and curational service. Her talents extend to the support she provides to the Arts Council of Greater Morgantown as director of Public Curation. The Erickson Alumni Center Nutting Gallery is curated under the Gallery Without Walls Program by Keener-Flanery.
West Virginia University’s Medicine Children’s hospital recently opened to the public of Greater Morgantown and beyond. The state-of-the-art facility features a variety of decorative components to make patients comfortable during their hospital stay. Among this décor is a display of art on the fourth floor in the connecting hall between WVU Children’s and J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital. The piece, designed and fabricated by Keener-Flanery, is a three-panel, 36-inch-by-36-inch piece, “Sow.” The piece is a tribute to the trades and craftspeople who dedicated their time to construct the hospital.
Keener-Flanery uses a variety of materials and artistic approaches on each of the panels to tell a story through her works. The base of each panel was painted on raw canvas to showcase the tools used by their craft — with the roots and ground, they set the foundation to produce the facility. Beth handstitched pieces of the soil in the painting to give dimension. The upper areas of the panels are acrylic on a gessoed canvas to depict the section completed by that trade.
Gallery without walls exhibit addition
The WVU Erickson Alumni Center Nutting Gallery was recently curated with a new exhibit. The exhibit features the work of West Virginia artists Payton Brown and Linda Elmer.
Brown is a visual artist from Berkeley Springs, who completed her B.F.A. in art education and is now pursuing an M.F.A. in painting and a graduate certificate in therapeutic art. Brown’s talents include a variety of visual art such as creating with acrylics, oils, colored pencils, charcoal and more.
Elmer, originally from Jane Lew, has extensive experience in teaching art education. Elmer graduated from Fairmont State University in 1981 with a B.A. in arts and journalism and an M.A. in visual art from WVU in 1991. On top of her experience in art education, Elmer has been featured in numerous juried exhibits, creating a strong reputation for her beautiful works.
The new exhibit is open to the public from 8:45 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Monday through Friday in the WVU Erikson Alumni Center Nutting Gallery.
Get connected to the creative community
The Arts Council of Greater Morgantown (ACGM) is your local resource for arts information and opportunities. Here at the ACGM, we aim to advance the arts and enhance the community by encouraging investment in imagination, infrastructure and invention. Please check out our website artsgm.org or follow us on Facebook and Instagram @theArtsCouncilofGreaterMorgantown.
Want to stay connected? Email Jordan@artsgm.org to be added to the ACGM Creative Network mailing list. Also, donations to advance the Arts Council can be made through the donation tab located at artsgm.org.
