A beautiful 'Homecoming': Meet the owner of Eden's newest art gallery and photography studio, Purcell House
EDEN, N.C. —
A new art gallery in Eden is providing underrepresented artists with a platform to showcase their work while helping its owner reconnect with his roots.
The gallery, named Purcell House, features pieces that highlight familiar faces from the community, including a portrait of Mr. Nelson.
"It feels great. It makes me think that I have accomplished something. That I was thought of," said Mr. Nelson, one of the community members featured in the gallery’s artwork.
"He was sitting outside; I felt like it was picturesque," said artist Ahmad Martin.
Martin is one of 16 artists whose work is displayed on the gallery’s wine-colored walls.
Zion Sidique McKnight, another featured artist, praised the gallery’s design. "I love what Amadeus did with the walls; it allows it to be shown and received the way it's supposed to," McKnight said.
The gallery’s owner, Amadeus Purcell, left North Carolina to pursue his dream of photography in New York after deciding to leave Morehouse College his junior year.
"My first gig ever was shooting my dad's barbershop’s ribbon-cutting," Purcell said.
Last August, he returned to Eden after his grandmother passed away.
"I came home, and I realized there was a gap in our family photo album," Purcell explained. "I noticed, too, that we were running towards physical photos of her and not like our digital ones. So I really wanted to bring back the art of physical photos and family photography."
He remembered the moment he told his late grandmother about his dream of opening a photography studio in 2019.
"I would tell her, you know, 'I got to figure out where we would like it to be.' And she always said, 'It needs to be at home.' I just didn't have the foresight at the time," he explained.
In July, he fulfilled his grandmother's wish and opened Purcell House on the corner of Washington Street and Monroe Street, in downtown Eden.
The art gallery and photography studio is down the street from his father’s barbershop, Square Kutz.
Purcell said he is following in his father's footsteps in more ways than one.
Square Kutz was the first Black-owned barbershop in downtown Eden.
Purcell House is the town's first Black-owned art gallery and portrait studio.
His father, Nathaniel Reynolds, beamed with pride about his son's accomplishment.
"I appreciate him and the fact that he has no fear," he said. "He's willing to take the chance. He also feels that he can do more and more. And although I'd like for him to kind of pace himself, I don't ever want to hold him back because I want him to be creative. I want him to be innovative. And I want him to maximize all of his potential."
The gallery’s inaugural exhibit, titled "Homecoming," holds special meaning for Purcell.
"In the South, homecoming has different meanings," Purcell said. "It could be your homecoming at church. It could be your school homecoming. For me, I felt like it was an opportunity to bring a lot of artists together, as well as the work that I've done over the years, and put it into a space where we can all catch up on lost time, and connect with each other in a way that we've never known before."
Martin and McKnight said the opportunity to display their work in Purcell House is not lost on them as Black artists.
Opportunities like this in the physical art space can be limited for artists of color, especially in the South.
"Those are the voices that really need to express what it is that maybe they're thinking, what it is that they're feeling. Just because there's just so much life, there's so much real and rawness in there that just gets snubbed," McKnight said.
"It's real realism. Just authentic emotion. Feeling. People being themselves," Martin said. "Seeing all these Black artists, and this place is fantastic. Being a part of it is even better. I feel like I'm part of something bigger than myself. Something I feel that's going to last here for way beyond us being here."
Ultimately, Purcell said he hopes this is a space that not only lends itself as a platform for artists' work and his own personal projects, but he also hopes it becomes a safe haven for the community where people can write their own story in real time.
"It feels like home to me," Purcell said. "It's the first time as an adult that I'm getting to come back home and create a space that I feel is not only needed for me, but for so many others."
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