Visual Arts
Collaborating with community partners and families, we enrich and enhance the quality of life in Durham by offering exceptional experiences for Artists and observers alike.
The Durham Charter Arts Program is funded in part thanks to a generous donation from The Kenan Family Foundation.
METHODOLOGY
- Art Shows and community events
- Field Trips
- Better Test Scores: High schoolers who took more than four years of arts and music classes scored an average of 166 points higher on the composite SAT compared to peers with half a year or less.
- College and Career Readiness: Low-income students who engage highly in the arts are twice as likely to graduate from college compared to peers without arts education.
- Cognitive Benefits: Integrating arts into other disciplines helps students grasp complex scientific, mathematical, and historical concepts by presenting them visually and engaging multiple senses at once.
Erin Fei’s artistic practice explores the complexities of her identity as an Asian American woman and the objectified gaze. Her paintings cross the boundaries between desire and repulsion, using the monstrous and grotesque to challenge viewers to confront their complicity in systems of oppression and exploitation. Through images of meat, flesh, and dining scenes she dives into the discomforting reality of being seen and consumed.
Erin received her MFA in Studio Art in 2024 from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and her BA in Studio Art from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia in 2020. She was a recipient of the prestigious Rosalie Chauncy scholarship for the study of painting in France as well as multiple talent awards. She has been a resident artist at The Silos in Richmond, VA, Attic 506 in Chapel Hill,NC and Lump Gallery in Raleigh, NC. Erin exhibits her work locally and nationally, and currently resides in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She has previously taught at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, NC A&T, and Guilford College. In addition to her main position as the Instructor in the Visual Art Major at Durham Charter School, she works as a part-time instructor of painting and drawing at Durham Arts Council and leads a monthly art class for children at The Ackland Museum of Art.