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New rock and roll themed work unveiled on stage at The Galley

Photo provided to the TImes Observer Oil City-based artist Fred Carrow with his work “Rock and Roll Heaven.” This print now hangs behind the stage at The Galley in Youngsville.

Sometimes the right piece of art winds its way to the right place.

That’s what Cathy Brown, who operated The Galley in Youngsville, is hoping for with a supersized version of “Rock and Roll Heaven,” a work by Oil City-based artist Fred Carrow that now hangs behind the stage at the restaurant.

The work highlights the contributions of 50 famous musicians.

It entered Brown’s radar because it includes Jimmy Buffett.

“I saw it (and was) instantly in love,” she said, calling the painting “what we were thinking of doing anyhow. We want to do a background for the music, the stage.”

So she took a chance and sent the artist an email. A supersized print of the work was unveiled this week.

“That’s perfect,” she said.

Carrow, a public school art teacher for 35 years, said he “always wanted to do a memorial piece to all of the musicians that inspired me as I grew up.”

The original work includes 50 deceased artists and is three feet by four feet.

Carrow has never seen a work of his be produced at a size this large.

He said he won a billboard contest once but never got to see the billboard in person.

“I made the resolution as best I could do it,” he said of what now is on display at The Galley. “I feel old when I look at that.”

Carrow said the idea had been “simmering” around for a while and took about three-and-a-half months to complete once he started sketching it out.

He said he had seen similarly situated works where the musicians are just thrown in and “not interacting or doing anything together.”

That collaboration and engagement is a key piece of the work.

“As I would paint somebody, I would listen to their music,” he said. “Every musician in there has a hint in it, an Easter egg.”

Those elements made the work stand out to brown.

“Something that really attracted me… all the little details,” she said, “The fact that they’re interacting.”

“Once you start looking,” Carrow said, “you look further.”

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