Artist Ward Nichols has painted western North Carolina rural landscape for over fifty years. In the preface to Nichols' book the late author J. A. C. Junn writes, "At exhibitions of Ward Nichols paintings, people looking at his incomprehensibly detailed art move slowly closer to the picture before them, as though irresistibly drawn by strings. Some lean in eight or ten inches from the image, craned forward, maybe even squinting. Apparently they expect the disciplined draftsmanship they first observed several feet away to reveal even finer precision at brath range. Seldom are they disappointed. Leaves, grass, nailheads, rust, rivets, the hairs of a horses' tail, nicks in the spokes of a wagon whelm shadows under the edges of barn boards, gossamer strands of vapor from an unraveling cloud, and like baroque music, every re-examination of a Nichols' painting discloses something previously unnoticed." Nichols' himself says "documenting the rural structures of the Appalachian region remains an obligation to record a passing lifestyle." His exhibitions are too numerous to mention and paintings are in private, corporate, and museum collections around the world.

 More information about Ward Nichols can be found at The Art Cellar Gallery 828.898.5175