July 27, 2009 (RALEIGH, NC) – For the fifth year, Raleigh-based artist Jason Craighead has received a MetroBravo Award for Best Artist in Raleigh Metro Magazine’s annual reader’s poll covering a 22-country area of North Carolina. This honor marks his his second consecutive “Standing Ovation” award, the poll’s highest honor, which he shares this year with fellow Raleigh artist Kyle Highsmith.
Jason Craighead is a prominent member of the North Carolina art scene and has been featured in a number of arts journals, including Artists & Art Galleries of the Southeast. His work has been featured in numerous group and solo shows through the Southeast, including a three-artist exhibit at the Fayetteville Museum of Art last fall and a two-artist exhibition in the Miriam Preston Block Art Gallery in the Avery Upchurch Municipal Building in downtown Raleigh. The City of Raleigh purchased his largest painting in that exhibit for its permanent collection.
The artist is currently preparing for a solo show at Somerhill Gallery in Durham that will open August 30.
“My work will forever be a passionate and emotionally charged evolving exploration of line and space, from scribble to scrawl,” he explains. “As artist, or even just thinker, one must never give in to the ‘simple’ or the ‘known’. With less fear comes more freedom.”
Craighead has been an active participant in the Triangle arts community for many years. He has donated numerous paintings to charitable art auctions. Paintings he donated to the Works of Heart auction for the Carolina AIDS Alliance and for the Visual Art Exchange’s annual fundraiser broke both organization’s records for the highest winning bids in their history.
He has also served as a juror and signature artist for Works of Heart, the Visual Art Exchange in Raleigh, the Greensboro Center for Visual Arts Members’ Show and Raleigh’s annual Artsplosure festival. He is also a member of the City of Raleigh Arts Commission’s (RAC) Public Art Committee.
Jason Craighead is currently represented by Somerhill Gallery in Durham, Broadhurst Gallery in Pinehurst, Anne Irwin Fine Art in Atlanta, GA,, and Bucks Gallery of Fine Art in Newtown, PA.
The first half of the Metro Bravo awards appear in the July edition of Raleigh Metro Magazine, which is available on newsstands and on line at http://www.metronc.com.
For more information on Jason Craighead, visit www.jasoncraighead.com.
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