This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate
A variety of styles, techniques and subject matter comprise this year's Neches River Festival art exhibit, which opens April 16 and runs through May 30 at the Beaumont Art League. Photo made Friday, April 14, 2023 Kim Brent/Beaumont Enterprise
Kim Brent
Sixty-five artist works hang on the walls inside the Beaumont Art League's Scurlock Gallery, representing some of the area's best artists and the landscape that inspires them, for this year's Neches River Festival art exhibit.
It's been a joint celebration between the entities who share a similar anniversary. While the Neches River Festival is celebrating 75 years, the Beaumont Art League is ringing in its 80th year.
Among the items in its permanent collection are pieces acquired 75 years ago from the inaugural Neches River Festival art show.
"We wanted to show more than river fronts and creeks," Art League staffer Stephanie Marie Orta said, while scouting the exhibit for final preparations ahead of Sunday's opening reception, which runs from 1 to 4 p.m.
Artists explored themes of land and water and the wildlife that calls Southeast Texas home.
Brooke Hood has two pieces in the show that feature some of the region's most regal birds - egrets and heron. She's joined in the exhibit by her daughter Cameron Hood, who made a bedazzled pink and white armadillo sculpture, as well as her father Alan Stine - a sculptor.
The exhibit not only goes outside the box of the "River Festival" theme in content, but in style.
There are paintings, sculptures, photography, digitally created works, resin-based pieces and some that combine multiple techniques and materials.
Whether your tastes lean toward the "Bob Ross" style traditional landscape - happy little trees and bubbling water - or something edgier that takes a minute to understand, there's something in this year's show for everyone, Orta said.
RELATED: King Neches LXXV revealed
Some artists move even further outside the box - blending the Southeast Texas landscape with one found thousands of miles away.
Christopher Troutman's colorful landscapes are like split-screen visions of Beaumont and its sister city, Beppo, Japan.
"I've seen this series develop, showing Beaumont and Japan and the cross-over of (the two cities)," Orta said. It's just one of many examples of how this show, which is part of the Neches River Festival's week-long celebration, has grown over time.
"The Neches River Festival encompasses the spirit of Southeast Texas," she said, and that includes the broader vision of what that spirit has come to mean for the community and artists looking to join in the celebration.
Sunday's opening reception will put one more art form on attendees' plates - culinary creativity.
Orta is especially excited that among the reception edibles will be a "snake cake" created by Thomas Davis, a local baker and decorator who is gaining recognition for his creative and artistically decorated desserts.
The Neches River Festival show will be on display at the Beaumont Art League through May 30.