On Friday, Jan. 8, The Montgomery Museum of Art and History at 300 Pepper Street SE, in Christiansburg will launch a new exhibit featuring paintings by artist Teri Hoover of Blacksburg.
Titled Explorations: Landscapes of the Heart, the exhibit will be on display at the museum through March 1, 2021. A virtual tour of the exhibit will be available in late January.
Hoover’s one-woman show will feature 20 of her latest works completed during 2020. The bulk of the paintings are in acrylic with several oil and mixed media pieces included. Inspired by nature, a love of gardening and the concept of layers, Hoover mainly utilizes various palette knives to bring her pieces to life. Her fascination with color and love of nature began as a young child and is evident in the pieces she shares in this collection.
Well known in this area as a professional photographer, many of her clients may be unaware she is also an accomplished artist. Not long after moving to Blacksburg in 1983, she embraced portrait photography, leaving her college ambition of being a painter.
“Photography seemed a better choice,” she said, “and I enjoy it very much.” Samples of her work may be found at https://www.terihhooverphotography.com/.
After joining the Blacksburg Regional Art Association (BRAA) in 2013, Hoover took several painting workshops over the next several years. During her first workshop with Dr. Danie Janov of Christiansburg, she knew she was “back on track.”
Semi-private watercolor lessons with local watercolorist Jesi Pace-Berkeley took up much of 2018 and 2019. “Each lesson stretched and broadened my understanding of the fundamentals of art,” Hoover said. “For me, watercolor is the most challenging medium, and the choice was made intentionally to slow me down and keep me from going ‘off on a tangent.’”
With the onset of COVID-19 in 2020, Hoover was prepared to take on creating the 20 paintings for the Montgomery Museum show. “While painting, I am totally immersed. There is no place for any other thoughts whatsoever,” Hoover said. “This allowed me to wade through what has been a most trying year.”
Her daily two-mile walks with her dog, Pepper, on nearby Huckleberry Trail in the Historic 16 Blocks of Blacksburg, were also a sanity saver.
Despite the focus on painting this year, she has yet to determine a favorite medium. In addition to painting and photography, she is also an avid gardener, quilter, fabric bowl maker and grandmother to two curious and creative children.
Hoover has been married for 40 years to Chuck Hoover, former owner of Hoover Color
Corporation in Pulaski County. It is not every artist who has her own color specialist.
As for their two previously mentioned children, The Hoovers have a daughter and son-in-law in Maryland and a musician son and daughter-in-law in Colorado who perform under the name You Knew Me When.
Besides Hoover’s Montgomery Museum show in January, she will have two other shows in 2021. “With These Hands,” 230 photographs of hands of people from all walks of life in and around the New River Valley, was first presented in 2018 as a community photography project. In 2021, it will be featured from Jan. 15 through April 15 at Zeppoli’s Italian Restaurant in Blacksburg and from May 15 through Aug. 15 at the Payne Gallery on the campus of Bluefield College, West Virginia.
In Blacksburg, Hoover has exhibited work at The Alexander Black House, The Artful Lawyer, The National Bank of Blacksburg, Brown Insurance and Zeppoli’s Italian Restaurant.
She has been accepted into the well-known Artemis Journal three times.
For more information about the museum, its hours and COVID-19 guidance, visit www.Montgomerymuseum.org.