The Hastings Gallery in the Katharine L. Boyd Library at Sandhills Community College presents a new exhibit, "Secular Art with Sacred Meaning," featuring the works of SCC art instructor Ray Martin.

The show opens with a reception on Thursday, Feb. 16, from 4 to 6 p.m.

Martin explores two constant visions. The first one is mixed media paintings and constructions that often call to mind reliquaries or altarpieces, with the sacred imbedded in the secular. The second is observational paintings, often landscapes, painted "en plein air" and focused on the astonishing enchantment possible in the everyday world. He typically works in oil or watercolors.

"My work is largely allegorical and symbolic in content," says Martin. "It conjures meaning in a manner parallel to the logic of dreams. I turn to the intimacy of self-exploration, believing the reflective unearthing of a single life is my path to universal sharing an connection with others. Like my Cherokee shaman ancestors, I offer my art as a gift for healing."

Born and raised in the Sandhills on the tobacco farms of his grandfathers, Martin says that from the time he could cull a nubby pencil and the back of an envelope from his grandma, he drew characters from the visible realm as well as from other dimensions. In turn those apparitions drew him into a lifetime of active participation in making beauty.

Martin earned a bachelor's of fine arts in drawing and painting at the School of Art at East Carolina University, where he has since been chosen as one of their outstanding alumni.

He earned his master's of fine arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Among other positions, Martin has worked as a secondary school art educator, a freelance illustrator, a director of a gifted and talented program in Charleston, S.C., and an Artist-in-the Schools for Green Hill Center for N.C. Art.

He adds to these art-related positions other jobs such as priming tobacco, loading peach trucks, working on assembly lines in furniture and hosiery factories, and crimping tubes in a warehouse.

From 1991-2010, Martin taught studio art and art education at Greensboro College, where he was presented with their two outstanding teaching awards.

Martin says he has longed to return to the Sandhills, where his family still resides. His dream was realized, and now he is teaching painting, drawing and art appreciation at Sandhills Community College.

He says that the greatest inspirations in his life are his children, Vincent, Rachael, Timothy, Olliver and Doug.

Admission to the Hastings Gallery is free and open to the public during regular library hours, Monday through Thursday, 7:45 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday, 7:45 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

This exhibit will run through March 27.