Untitled, 1963

A devout Christian and longtime gatekeeper at the formal Airlie Gardens in North Carolina, Evans' deep rooted spirituality and love of nature are entwined throughout her oeuvre. Completing her first drawings on Good Friday in 1935, Evans went on to create increasingly complex paintings depicting the faces of ancestral spirits and angels amidst verdant plants and animals, showing the presence of God on both physical and otherworldly planes. Her artistic process, much like her depictions, was imbued with spirituality. She famously noted, “I have no imagination. I never plan a drawing, they just happen. In a dream it was shown to me what I have to do, of paintings.”