Westbank artist Katy Nail kicked off her Flesh and Stone exhibit at the Nancy Wilson Scanlan Gallery in the Helm Fine Arts Center with a reception an artist’s talk Sunday.

The exhibit runs through March 1 and includes some of Nail’s many paintings and drawings. The gallery is part of the St. Stephens Episcopal School campus, 6500 St. Stephen’s Drive.

Katy Nail was educated in Houston, Mexico and Europe and received a bachelor of fine arts degree in studio art with honors in art in 1975 from Sam Houston State University. Her work is in private and public collections in the United States and Europe. In Texas, her paintings have been exhibited and won awards for more than 30 years in museums and galleries.

Nail is working on a unique landscape series capturing Big Bend in West Texas and the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico, commissioned portraits and illustrations for books written by her mother, Frances Nail and her daughter, Carrie Rodriguez.

“So many times, a painting happens when you just can’t shake the vision out of your head,” Nail said. “It keeps coming back to haunt you, sometimes as a story, clairvoyant or mythological, sometimes a scene from the natural world so powerful you have to interpret it. Lately, hiking to the end of trails leads me to the most profound experience. The process is not about returning to the studio to render my photographs into painterly canvases. It’s about returning to interpret the energy found in those vast and remote places, almost painting with my eyes closed. These large canvases represent what is so hidden from view, environmentally sacred ground that merits our love and protection.”

Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. and by appointment during events at the Helm Theatre. To arrange an exhibition tour, contact Nail at 263-3223. To see examples of Nail’s art, visit katynailart.com.

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