Commerce Gallery celebrates 5th birthday along with First Friday artists

Commerce Gallery welcomes Caroline Pinney and Camille Woods as its March artists with an Open House during First Friday on March 1 from 1 a.m. to 5 p.m., and a Meet the Artists from 5-8 p.m.

It is also Commerce Gallery’s fifth birthday.

Woods is a contemporary figurative painter. Her work explores the day-to-day human experience through the lens of her own life and journey as a queer woman. Woods paints characters’ stories, individually or collectively, using bold colors and themes of desperation, loneliness, acceptance, and belonging. She is interested in how humans relate to each other in love, friendship, and community and how these relationships give them the strength to endure. Woods wants the viewer to feel the energy and emotions of the colors vibrating off the canvas as if the story is theirs.

Pinney is a contemporary figurative artist whose work primarily explores intimacy and human relationships. Since receiving her BFA in 2016, the artist has lived in Nashville, Richmond, and is now based in Austin — energized by the warm weather. The landscapes and robust art and music scenes of each city have propelled her curiosity and independence, instilling lyricism and movement into her work.

Pinney’s paintings evoke an art brut approach, treading the line between gestural and more controlled methods of application. Both her use of color and texture is deeply influenced by the artist’s environment. Her characteristic color palette and the various textures she materializes embody her distinct visual language. She manipulates traditional materials such as acrylic, oil and charcoal, while her experimental practice employs coffee staining, ink made from natural elements, spray paint, and subtractive methods — adding an eccentric dynamism.