Jack Saylor “Above and Beyond”
October 25 - November 10
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North Carolina native Jack Saylor received his degree in art from Barton College in Wilson, North Carolina. Upon graduating he moved to Spain then Italy where he began his pursuits as an artist while also working as a product designer for Sarreid Ltd., a U.S. based high end home furnishings importer. Over the next 10 years Jack would travel back and forth between the U.S. and Europe working side by side with artists and artisans in their centuries old studios and workshops throughout Spain and Italy. During this time Jack became very knowledgeable in old world studio practices involving numerous art forms, techniques and materials passed down through generations of European master craftsmen. These practices were utilized in the creation of the products Jack was designing particularly in Florence Italy while at the same time he was continuing to further develop his painting skills incorporating much of the knowledge he was gaining in these workshops and studios. Living in Florence amongst some of the greatest art ever created afforded Jack the opportunity to study intensely the art of Western, Southern and Northern Europe particularly the Italian Renaissance and Dutch 17th Century which remain sources he draws upon today. This rich artistic environment when combined with his intense concentration on the historically inspired objects he was designing proved a perfect breeding ground for his development as a still life painter.
In the early '90s Jack began to yearn for his own cultural heritage back in the U.S. and in 1995 he and his wife Ann, the great-great granddaughter of a sea captain, moved to the coast of their native state of North Carolina. The sea, a lifelong passion and deeply powerful source for Jack would now become his home and would provide a constant feed of inspiration that would inform his work in a way that would not be possible from a distance.
Jack and his wife live in the historic port town of Beaufort, NC. A particular highlight for Jack came in 2007 when he worked with the State of North Carolina to create a large still life painting depicting artifacts recovered from the pirate Blackbeard's flagship the "Queen Anne's Revenge", the only painting of its kind ever created. The artwork of Jack Saylor is extensively held in private and corporate collections throughout the country.
