Hank Williams receives the stigmata (in Nora Othic's drawing below)

By ALICE THORSON
The Kansas City Star

(Excerpt from article provided by the artist Friday February 4th, 2011):

Don't miss popular local artist Nora Othic's "C&W" exhibit of new drawings at the Late Show, which overlaps with her recently opened "Rock & Roller" show at Avila University's Thornhill Gallery.

In a recent e-mail, Othic said she found country lyrics to be much more difficult to illustrate than rock 'n roll songs.

"They are about drinking, being brokenhearted, losing again" lots of verbs and not many nouns," she said. So she took another tack: "I began to think of some of the country (and) western icons as Renaissance or Baroque saints, wrestling with sin, guilt and redemption."

She based some of the portraits on religious masterworks, including a Johnny Cash takeoff on Antonello da Messina's "St. Sebastian." Another source of visual inspiration was Georges de La Tour's repentant Magdalenes, she said.

"My Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons ended up looking more like a romance novel cover than Bernini's "Ecstasy of St. Teresa," Othic said, "but with C&W, that seemed appropriate." 

Pastel rocker Nora Othic

"Honky-Tonk Women" by Ms. Othic

Click triangle for 5 minute visit to Othic's studio.

In this 8 minute video the artist talks about how she compresses the space her figures stand in. 

For more information call the Late Show at 816-474-1300 or Marci Aylward at 816-501-3659 or email  Marci.Aylward@avila.edu