September 30th., 2007

 Best in Show.  What does such a term mean?  For me it is a simple designation that denotes the best achievement in artistic presentation.  This years winner for Best in Show for the Matthews Art Fest is Werner Willis of Charlotte, North Carolina for his work "By Dawns Early Light".  A 30" by 40" original oil on canvas that was inspired by the Percy Moran piece "The Star Spangled Banner". 

Percy Moran's piece completed in 1913 and shown here to the right, depicts Francis Scott Key standing upon a boat with his hand outstretched to a tattered United States flag hanging above Ft. McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland.  There are many similarities in the paintings that point to the influence of Moran in the new work, yet the perspective is significantly different enough to assuage any fear that someone would claim the new work was a shallow reproduction of the 1913 piece.  I only wish that lighting had allowed for me to get a better photograph of Werner's piece to post here for more direct comparison.  I encourage you to visit Werner Willis's other works at American Art show or at www.wernerwillisfineart.com.

 

Werner Willis was born in  Vienna Austria in 1940. He began his apprenticeship early as an artist under a Master artist from Munich and continued to learn the techniques of the masters until his formal training ended at age 17 at which time Werner and his family moved to the United States.

Werner attributes his success in representational art to his sketch work, claiming that today's artists don't take enough time to draw..  He advises that any artist that truly wants to capture the essence and realism of their work need to first master drawing.

In my brief conversation with Werner, he related to me how he for some reason seemed to collect second place ribbons for his works.  This rather surprised me as his work would rarely take a red ribbon at the many shows I attend.  Today, as far as this critic is concerned, Werner...........you take the Blue Ribbon.  Thank you for being an encouragement to young artists and for sharing you wonderful talent with the community.