Heaven On Earth
A special exhibit featuring a curation of fine art from a group of North Carolina artists
August 18 - September 24, 2026
Opening Reception Friday, August 21, 2026, 6 p.m.–8 p.m.
The Featured Artists
Nicholas Burton Bragg
Winston-Salem, NC
Born in 1936, Nicholas Burton Bragg graduated from Wake Forest College and pursued graduate studies in history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Throughout his distinguished career, he held leadership roles with historic and cultural institutions across North Carolina and Virginia, including Old Salem, Reynolda House, and the Reynolds Homestead Birthplace. In addition to his acclaimed oil and watercolor paintings, Bragg is celebrated for his 25 public murals throughout North Carolina, with works featured in civic, healthcare, educational, and cultural spaces, leaving a lasting legacy in the state's artistic and historical landscape.
Tony Griffin
Statesville, NC
Born in Monroe, North Carolina, Tony Griffin discovered his passion for drawing at an early age before spending his high school years in Florence, Italy, where he studied with local artists and found lasting inspiration in the Renaissance masters. He continued his artistic training at the North Carolina School of the Arts, Appalachian State University, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where his career began to flourish through early exhibitions. After several years painting in the Philadelphia area, Griffin returned to North Carolina, where he has exhibited extensively throughout Charlotte and the mountain region. His work is deeply personal, capturing the people, places, and moments of his life while expressing the sensations and experiences that inspire his creative process.
Anne Harkness
Mooresville, NC
A North Carolina native, Anne Harkness studied at the Atlanta College of Art and earned a BFA in Graphic Design from the Maryland Institute College of Art. After a 15-year career as an art director in New York City, she turned her focus to contemporary painting, creating works that reveal unexpected beauty in everyday places and preserve moments of ordinary life through a distinctive perspective. Guided by a strong sense of design, Harkness emphasizes line, movement, and layered surfaces, allowing expressive marks and spontaneous discoveries to shape each piece. Her process reflects a continual pursuit of fresh ideas, inspired by careful observation and a lifelong love of drawing.
Chieko Murasugi
Chapel Hill, NC
Chieko Murasugi is a painter and textile artist who was born in Tokyo, raised in Toronto, and lived in San Francisco for 20 years before moving to the North Carolina Triangle in 2012. She has exhibited her work nationally in galleries and museums including the Weatherspoon, Mint, CAM Raleigh, and Ackland Museums. Her paintings reside in collections of Duke University, and the Cities of Raleigh and Durham. She has been awarded artist residencies at Hambidge, Black Mountain College (digital), and Wildacres. She holds degrees in Visual Perception (Experimental Psychology, Ph.D. York U) and Studio Art (MFA UNC-Chapel Hill).
Lamar Whidbee
Raleigh, NC
Born and raised in Hertford, North Carolina, Lamar Whidbee is an interdisciplinary artist and Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Associate whose work merges visual art with therapeutic inquiry. Through painting and mixed media, he explores themes of memory, fatherhood, Black identity, and mental health, creating work that fosters reflection and dialogue. In addition to exhibiting his work and creating public art installations, Whidbee provides clinical services and leads therapeutic art workshops in schools, museums, and community settings. His doctoral studies at NC State University focus on developing culturally responsive, art-informed counseling practices that expand access to healing for rural and historically marginalized communities.
Frank Bragg
Davidson/Huntersville, NC
A lifelong North Carolinian, Frank Bragg began painting at age 71 after a 50-year career in business. His work reflects a deep appreciation for North Carolina’s natural landscapes and a commitment to land conservation. He studied under nationally recognized artist Andy Braitman and acclaimed regional painter Curt Butler, earning awards in juried exhibitions. Bragg is also the founder of Bragg Financial Advisors and the Ramah Creek Conservation Area, and co-founder of Right Moves for Youth. He remains active in the community through leadership roles with WDAV and the Charlotte Symphony.
Jonathan Brilliant
Raleigh, NC
Jonathan Brilliant is a South Carolina-born artist whose interdisciplinary practice has been exhibited nationally and internationally. He holds a B.A. in Studio Art from the College of Charleston and an M.F.A. in Spatial Arts from CSU San Jose, and is a recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant and a South Carolina Arts Commission Visual Arts Fellowship. His extensive exhibition history includes solo museum shows at the Taubman Museum of Art and Hickory Museum of Art, as well as his ambitious Have Sticks Will Travel: World Tour, a series of site-specific installations presented across three countries. Brilliant has also participated in numerous artist residencies and fellowships and served as a visiting artist at universities across the country. He lives and works in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Darrell Coble
Burlington, NC
A photographer and visual storyteller, Darrell Coble draws inspiration from the intersections of reality, dreams, resilience, and identity, exploring how photography shapes self-representation and reflects a changing collective culture. Formally trained in photojournalism and portraiture, their work examines identity politics and social justice through independent studies and documentary imagery. Over four decades, they have presented 15 solo exhibitions and numerous pop-up shows at venues including Duke University, independent art spaces, and LGBTQIA+ centers throughout central North Carolina. Their practice views art as an ongoing conversation that fosters connection, reflection, and transformation, while challenging the socioeconomic structures that shape lived experience. They are currently compiling socially conscious works created since 2002 into a book.
Janet Ecklebarger
Mebane, NC
Janet explores the home and body as spaces for connection and expressions of identity, using shared aesthetics and values as catalysts for conversation. Her practice is shaped by concerns about an uncertain ecological future and incorporates abandoned natural, industrial, and residential materials, transforming them into contemporary talismanic objects. At the heart of her work is a process of reimagining discarded materials to create pieces that invite reflection on identity, place, and our relationship to the environment. Janet received her MFA from Cranbrook in 1992 and currently lives in Mebane, North Carolina.
Diana Greene
Winston-Salem, NC
Diana Greene is an artist and documentarian whose multimedia practice explores community, place, identity, and memory through photography, film, and creative inquiry. Her award-winning work has been supported by universities, museums, nonprofits, and municipalities, including two Pulitzer Center grants in 2017 and 2018 for documentaries examining textile globalization, economic mobility, and the relationship between place and identity. Her films include Bus Stop Jobs and Home Stretch, both funded by Winston-Salem State University’s Center for the Study of Economic Mobility. In 2025, her documentary short Making Sense Backwards: The Nick Bragg Story screened at film festivals nationwide and aired on PBS-NC.
Betty Haskin
Chapel Hill, NC
With seventeen years of experience working and consulting in the field of arts and health, Betty Haskin brings a unique perspective to her creative practice. Research in the field supports the idea that views of nature—whether through a window or represented in a painted landscape—can encourage and sustain healing. She is struck by the synchronicity between her creative work as a landscape painter and her curatorial work in arts and health; in both, she seeks to shape and enhance the viewer’s experience. Her work is grounded in the belief that art can offer a sense of transformation, inviting viewers to experience the world differently in ways that support health and well-being.
Tama Hochbaum
Chapel Hill, NC
Tama Hochbaum is an artist and photographer based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Originally from New York, she earned a BA in Fine Arts from Brandeis University and an MFA in Painting from Queens College, and was awarded a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to study printmaking in Paris. After two decades as a painter, Hochbaum transitioned to photography, exhibiting nationally and internationally and earning recognition as a two-time Critical Mass/PhotoLucida finalist. Her work is held in museum and corporate collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and has been commissioned by Truist Bank. She is also the author of SILVER SCREEN and has collaborated with composer Allen Anderson on multimedia works presented at UNC Chapel Hill and CAM Raleigh.
Bill Neville
Chapel Hill, NC
For more than four decades, Bill Neville has worked across furniture making, sculpture, and painting, creating pieces that celebrate the beauty and organic qualities of natural materials. His diverse practice includes handcrafted wooden furniture and sculpture, as well as paintings incorporating ink, oil, and collage. Often working in series, he explores ideas from multiple perspectives, allowing each work to evolve organically. His furniture and artwork can be found in homes and communities throughout North Carolina and across the United States.
Justin Akeim Trapp
Haw River, NC
Justin Akeim Trapp is the founder of Half Full Ceramics and a B.F.A. graduate in ceramics and photography from Herron School of Art & Design. Based in Alamance County, North Carolina, he has worked with clay since 2005 and taught wheel throwing for more than a decade. His practice celebrates ceramics as both a functional art form and a means of meditation, reflection, and stress relief. Guided by the belief that practice matters more than perfection, Trapp creates utilitarian and fine art objects designed to be enjoyed by everyday users and seasoned collectors alike.
Mike Newins
Hillsborough, NC
Mike Newins (he/they) is a craftsperson and interdisciplinary designer based in North Carolina. Within their fabrication studio, Make Nice, they create furniture and objects that explore craft techniques, new mediums, and their emotional connection to form. Their practice is characterized by meticulous attention to detail, a soft yet severe visual vocabulary, and a willingness to play.
Paul Travis Phillips
Winston Salem, NC
Paul Travis Phillips is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, sculpture, altered objects, installation, performance, and writing. Working with language as both subject and material, he draws from discarded and suppressed sources to examine how knowledge is formed, fractured, and preserved. His work embraces slowness, instability, and sustained inquiry, exploring the points where systems of understanding begin to break down and revealing the structures that shape what can be known, said, or remembered. Phillips is an Associate Professor of Art at Elon University, where his studio practice and teaching continue his investigation into intellectual resilience, authorship, and the formation of ideas.
Peter Tietbohl
Asheboro, NC
Peter discovered glassblowing in 2018 at the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts in Reading, Pennsylvania, where an introductory class sparked a lasting passion for the medium. He quickly immersed himself in studio practice, working alongside professional glass artists and developing his skills through workshops, production, and hands-on experience. Throughout his career, he has studied and worked with numerous acclaimed glass artists and trained at institutions including Alfred University, the Corning Museum of Glass, Pittsburgh Glass Center, and Pilchuck Glass School. Since 2025, Peter has been based in North Carolina, creating his work at Starworks in Star, NC, where he continues to explore the precision and transformative possibilities of molten glass.