Bluefield College will host a free art workshop, “Jazz Technique for Visual Artists” with internationally acclaimed artist, Linwood Berry, on Friday, September 6 at 3 p.m. in the Cox Visual Arts Center. This event will be free and open to the public.
Berry has conducted workshops around the world, including England, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Spain, Portugal, and all over the United States. Berry’s design approach is to stimulate and provoke the observer’s imagination with many abstract elements.
“My paintings flow out of my observations, questions, joys, and doubts about the path we’re on. My interests in theology, philosophy and my own life experience often find their way into my paintings,” Berry said.
Berry currently resides in Madrid, Spain. Growing up in a very artistic family, he lived in several places on both the east and west coast of the United States. After graduating from high school at 17, he worked on a commercial fishing boat and in a lumber camp but eventually gravitated towards construction and became a master electrician.
At 21, he and his wife, Nancy settled in North Carolina where they built a house and “lived off the land” and grew their own food during the “back to the land”
movement which was popular at that time. Berry also started an electrical construction business.
Two major events changed his life at that point. Berry gave his life to Christ and begin to paint seriously. He sold his electrical business and moved to South Carolina to begin to work on God’s calling for his life. In South Carolina, he graduated magna cum laude from Columbia International University with a Bachelor of Arts in intercultural studies and theology. The couple then moved to London, England to continue post-graduate studies at the Centre for International Christian Ministries. After completing their graduate work, the Berrys moved to Madrid, Spain where they grew many churches throughout the country. Berry and his wife began the Mustard Seed Institute in 1993 to train pastors and church leaders to incarnate the message of Christ in post-modern and “post-Christian” Europe. Graduates from the Mustard Seed Institute went on to start even more churches.
Berry saw the impact his art had on those around him, and that inspired him to pursue more formal training in art. After studying art in Paris under Jean Pierre Merat and the French Society of Pastel Artists and taking several workshops, Berry established his own studio in 2002 in the heart of Toledo, Spain and later on founded the Síntesis Art Gallery and Cultural Center.
For more information on Berry’s upcoming art workshop at Bluefield College, contact Lindsey Akers, director of marketing and public relations at [email protected] or 276.326.4212 or Walter Shroyer, professor and chair of art and design at [email protected] or 276.326.4558.