Rocky Mount, N.C.— Janice Gravely: A Retrospective of Paintings at Wesleyan College: Family, Florals, Landscape and Ideas will be on display in NC Wesleyan’s Mims Gallery in the Dunn Center for the Performing Arts from April 30 through July 11. Gallery hours are 9-5 Monday through Friday.

The exhibit opens Friday, April 30, with a reception party for the artist from 7:00-9:00 p.m. in the Mims Gallery. Live light classical music will be provided by a trio featuring her son Keen, daughter Jane, and family friend Lori Mizelle.

With “Family, Florals, Landscape and Ideas” from the 1950s to the present, and with oil paint still wet on the canvas, Janice Gravely’s retrospective of paintings involves four themes taken from a life she declares has been shaped by God.

An artist’s retrospective is an overview of productive years. Mrs. Gravely says, “This collection is a visual diary of the full, rich life God gives His children.” “Family, Florals, Landscape and Ideas” features subjects that are loved and dear to her, such as portraits of her late husband, Edmund, and all her family. “Florals” are special to watercolor painters, and it is evident that Mrs. Gravely delights in colors found in flowers. The panoramic view seems to be the attraction in her “Landscapes.” She presents the gaze of a modern explorer, a traveler to more than 20 foreign countries. Her “Idea” pictures are paintings for painters and their curious admirers, from bold abstraction with impasto oil paint to a narrative of odd chairs, like the good fellowship of old friends.

Janice Gravely has been drawing and painting since childhood. She especially enjoys making portraits of family and friends. Oil portraits of school superintendent D.S. Johnson and of the YWCA’s Lena Gray and Martha Milton have hung in public buildings in Rocky Mount. She has made solo exhibits at the Allegheny County Library, Nash County Arts Council, and at Roaring Gap, N.C. She served as a Navy Wave during the Second World War, when she met her husband. She has authored two books: one about her husband’s tragic death while piloting his plane and how God gave Janice Gravely her first flight lesson to land safely. She is the senior member of an established Rocky Mount family who are among North Carolina Wesleyan College’s founders and who have continued to give generously to Wesleyan:  the Gravely Science Building and the Gravely Scholarship were funded by the family.