Mary Bryson and Caroline Love both grew up in small towns in southern North Carolina. They are both members of the Artists League of the Sandhills, have a studio space there and have been selected to exhibit their "Carolina Expressions" art for the month of April in the League's Exchange Street Gallery.

Mary Bryson is a fulltime artist living in Pinehurst. She received a master's degree in education from Western Carolina University in Cullowhee. She has had extensive training with Robert H. Way, of Pinehurst. Mary also has studied with Dawn Whitelaw, Tom Lynch, Pat Aube Grey, Paul McCormick and Timothy Tyler. Recently she studied with Michael Wilcox, a world, renowned colorist from England.

Bryson began her art career in 2002. The majority of her commissions are portraits of individuals and couples from the southern part of the United States. She presently is showing in Richmond, Va., at the Crossroads Art Gallery. Although Bryson does many portraits, she also enjoys painting large flowers and landscapes. Her style is usually realistic and is done with many thin layers of paint that produce a three-dimensional effect and luminosity. Recently she has added watercolor collage and batik on rice paper to her repertoire.

Caroline Love has a bachelor's degree in education from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. She began her formal study of art in 1970 in Miami, Fla. After trying different mediums, she discovered her niche was watercolors. She became a member and officer of the Miami Watercolor Society and a member of the Florida Watercolor Society. For a number of years she studied art with Virginia Lovell and attended workshops, on-site painting trips and outdoor sessions with renowned watercolorists Phil Capen, Ferdinand Petrie and Bill Hinnant.

For four years Love had her own art business and participated in the winter outdoor art circuit in south Florida. During the summers she traveled to New England and was juried into shows in Connecticut and Rhode Island. In 1980, she was invited to have a one-woman show at the World Trade Center in New York City.

After a 25-year hiatus to raise a family, teach school and live overseas, Love resumed her art career after moving to Pinehurst in 2006. Her art reflects her love of the rural South, and the realistic paintings capture farm and barn scenes that are fast disappearing from the present-day landscape. In addition to painting rustic, weathered barns, she also loves painting lighthouses and seascapes from Maine to the Bahamas.

Bryson and Love will be hosting an opening reception for their exhibit Saturday, April 4, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Artists League Exchange Street Gallery, and the reception is open to the public.

The Artists League of the Sandhills is a nonprofit organization founded in 1994 to promote interest in the visual arts by providing quality art education and a friendly environment in which to work and exhibit. It is located in historic downtown Aberdeen at 129 Exchange Street in the old Aberdeen Rockfish Railroad storage terminal.

Regular gallery hours are Monday through Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. Contact the League at (910) 944-4979 or artistleague@pinehurst.net for information on membership, classes, workshops and monthly gallery exhibits.?