The 4th Annual North Carolina Plein Air Art Festival in New Bern will be May 12-19, 2024. The eight-day Festival showcases 35 nationally and globally acclaimed plein air artists, including newly juried painters, joining award winners and top performers from 2023’s Festival.

Artists will create approximately 400 paintings featuring local scenes, subjects, and vistas, in a friendly competition to win the $4,000 Best of Show Koffenberger Award, plus other prominent awards and recognition totaling over $12K.

Festival attendees will have numerous opportunities to meet and talk with the artists, including using a real-time cell phone app showing the locations of featured painters each day. In addition, youth and adult amateur artists can meet with the pros and compete for ribbons and cash awards in the annual Quick Paint competition.

The term ‘plein air’ is French and means ‘open air'. Plein air painting can be traced back to Impressionist artists such as Monet, Renoir, and Degas – painting outdoors and capturing fleeting moments of light, color, atmosphere, and the mood of a scene, rather than detailed representations.

Painting venues include Historic New Bern, the first capital of North Carolina; Beaufort, the home of the North Carolina Maritime Museum; and Oriental, the sailing capital of North Carolina. In addition, artists will choose more sites and landscapes in Craven, Carteret, and Pamlico Counties.

Festival headquarters, including demonstrations, workshops, art displays, and sales, will be based at Historic New Bern’s Farmers Market, less than two blocks from Tryon Palace. In addition, pop-up exhibits and art sales will happen in Beaufort and Oriental, with location details, dates, and times on NCPleinAir.org website and on social media platforms #ncpleinair. All activities are free except the workshops, Saturday’s awards celebration, and a modest fee for artists to enter the Quick Paint competition (no charge for spectators).

Workshops will include award-winning plein air artists, James Richards, Awards Juror and Shanna Kunz, Selection Juror.

DEAL OF THE DAY