Art on the Walls

The New Deal Cafe provides a venue for local artists to exhibit and sell their work. We have a showroom and glass display cases, and every other month new artwork is featured. Join us at a reception to meet the creative talent behind the next exhibit.

If you’re an artist, we’d love to talk to you about having a show at the cafe.

The cafe’s art exhibits are mounted by the New Deal Cafe Art Committee and sponsored by the Friends of New Deal Cafe Arts with support from Prince George’s County. Your tax-deductible donation to FONDCA supports art at the cafe.

July – August 2022: Bill Moats

Artist’s Creativity, Abstraction, Dichotomy

Reception: Sunday, July 31, 2-4pm

Paintings by Bill Moats, a Kentucky native and a resident of Old Greenbelt are currently on exhibit at the New Deal Café. Experience the wonderful opportunity offered this summer by FONDCA. A selection of Bill’s new and eclectic paintings stimulates thoughts and emotional memories and touches many levels of awareness. Each painting is a strong statement of form and a reference to dichotomy. Engaging with the images one begins to realize art is more than just “pretty.” Instead, it allows us to drop into many states of relationship with inner landscape and the world around us. This exhibit does not disappoint!

Bill’s work vividly reminds us of the depth and breadth of talented artists who live and work in Greenbelt. Visit the café or attend the Artists reception Sunday July 31 from 2 p.m. – 4 p.m. at the New Deal Cafe.

We asked Bill to describe his work. He shared how it has evolved during his career from initially exploring interpretations of real objects, portraiture in watercolor and large scale abstracts. He described his recent work as an exploration focused on the concept of di·chot·o·my, dīˈkädəmē/ a division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different. His paintings explore images from the natural world and contrasts them with non-objective, purely abstract forms and passages that imagine an alternative or oppositional environment.

Bill went on to say that his attempts at abstraction opens the artist experience to a temptation to resist abstraction—to stray into seemingly familiar, realistic or representational directions. He shared his belief that it is essential to interrupt this urge for safety. Even if one is confident in ones skill to render the “real” world with ease, the result will most often be disappointing. The desire for the abstract emerges from a deeper realm of the psyche. Psyche being a non-verbal, primal place with its own language of ideas out of which is created a visual dichotomy of an inner landscape of abstract thought or emotional reflection.

Bill Moats was born and raised in KY, earned a BA in Art and Anthropology from Western Kentucky University and an MA in Counseling Psychology from Regis University, Denver CO. Early in his career, his work was acquired by many art collections and has received numerous awards from a variety of competitions throughout the south and mid-east region. In 1991 he became Director of the Ervin G. Houchins Gallery, Capitol Arts Center in Bowling Green, KY where he curated over 50 fine art and craft exhibitions, and was active in a variety of Arts organizations including, the Kentucky Arts Commission. 

In Colorado, Bill worked with staff and curators as Museum Coordinator of Graphics and Digital Media to develop exhibition graphics for the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History and at the same time maintained a successful freelance graphic business. Bill retired after 20 years and recently moved to Maryland. Bill and his wife Cynthia Swan live in old Greenbelt, down the street from their grandson, Max.

Bill Moats’ work is currently on exhibit and available for purchase at the New Deal Café. Contact the artist at .