Short Leash
Photographs From Close to Home
Elizabeth Matheson
Jan 26th thru Mar 9th 2024
Opening Reception &
Last Fridays
Friday, Jan 26th, 6 - 8:30 PM
Music with
Katharine Whalen & Certain Seas
Last Fridays Reception
Friday, Feb 23rd, 6 - 8:30 PM
Music with Sugaree String Society
Closing / Meet the Artist Reception
Saturday, Mar 9th, 4 - 6 PM
Gallery open Saturdays 11-5,
By appointment and serendipity
Artist Statement
During lockdown I began taking daily walks in my hometown and drives out in the surrounding countryside. I discovered back yards I had never seen and country roads with names familiar from my childhood but which I had never explored. I found that every day could bring small delights and that sometimes these little jolts of elation could be captured with my ever-handy phone camera. This discovery and rediscovery of home turf was a great gift, and the beginning of an addiction which, I am happy to report, has not been cured.
~ Elizabeth Matheson
Printing by FOTOGRAFIX, with special thanks to Wojtek Wojdynski for his collaboration and skill.
About Elizabeth Matheson
A native of Hillsborough, North Carolina, Elizabeth Matheson earned her BA from Sweet Briar College in 1964. She began photographing in 1969 and studied with John Menapace at the Penland School of Crafts in 1972.
She received a Southeastern Center for Contemporary Arts/NEA grant in 1977 and a North Carolina Arts Council Artists’ Fellowship in 1984. One-person exhibitions of her work include Hollins University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, the North Carolina Museum of Art, Duke University, the Greenhill Center for North Carolina Art, St. John’s Museum in Wilmington, Western Carolina University, the National Humanities Center, the Gregg Museum at North Carolina State University, and the Craven-Allen Gallery. Her work is in the collections of the Nasher Museum at Duke University, the Gregg Museum at NC State University, the Ackland Museum at the University of North Carolina, and the North Carolina Museum of Art, as well as many private collections.
In 2022-23, Uncommon, a retrospective of Matheson’s work spanning 50 years, was shown Cassilhaus, in Chapel Hill. It traveled to Upstairs Artspace in Tryon, NC in September, 2023.
Among her publications are books about Edenton and Hillsborough, North Carolina; To See, with poems by Michael McFee, North Carolina Wesleyan Press, 1991; Blithe Air: Photographs of England, Wales, and Ireland, Jargon Society, 1995; Quartet, Four North Carolina Photographers (with Rob Amberg, Caroline Vaughan, and John Rosenthal) Safe Harbor Books, 2005; and Shell Castle, Portrait of a North Carolina House, Safe Harbor Books, 2008.
In 2004, Elizabeth Matheson was awarded the North Carolina Award for Excellence in the Arts, the state’s highest civilian honor.
Photo of Elizabeth Matheson by Steven Burke