THE ART LOVER’S GUIDE TO NORTH CAROLINA
Located along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean is North Carolina, a state recognized not only for its lush beauty— ranging from shorelines to mountainous terrain—but also its reputation for its fine arts and culture. There are thriving community theater scenes as well as dedication to the visual and performing arts in each of its major hubs, including Charlotte, Raleigh and Asheville. Ceramic arts are also big in the state, with the city of Seagrove dubbed as “pottery paradise.” Each November the town hosts its Annual Seagrove Pottery Festival, with its 38th annual event happening November 23 and 24 and featuring more than 120 area potters and craftspeople.
Charlotte, one of the largest cities in the state, has neighborhoods filled with galleries and museums to entice visitors and locals alike. In the Uptown area are some of the major institutions including Bechtler Museum of Modern Art; Levine Center for the Arts; Mint Museum Uptown (its second facility is located in the Cotswold neighborhood); and New Gallery of Modern Art. The Mint hosts a number of exhibitions throughout the year, with Coined in the South running through February 16 at the Uptown location. The show, in collaboration with the museum’s young professionals group The Young Affiliates, is a juried exhibition for established and emerging artists working in or from the Southeast.
The North Davidson, NoDa, neighborhood is considered to be the hub for the arts in Charlotte. It has galleries, gift shops and dining, allowing patrons to not only take in the visual arts but the culinary arts of the famed city. Other notable neighborhoods include Myers Park, which is home to a number
of galleries including Shain Gallery and Theatre Charlotte.
Each September in the city is the Festival in the Park. The next iteration happens September 25 through 27, 2020. Since 1964 the weekend festival has brought locals a taste of music and art from the city. Hosted by the same organizers is the Kings Drive Art Walk, a two-day event featuring artwork by fine and emerging artists along Little Sugar Creek Greenway. The 10th edition takes place May 2 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and May 3 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Raleigh has often been called the “Smithsonian of the South” as it brims with performing and visual arts, including a collection of must-visit museums, locally owned galleries and more. The North Carolina Museum of Art is one stop and includes upcoming shows such as Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection, October 26 to January 29, and opening next year, Front Burner: Highlights in Contemporary North Carolina Painting from March 7 through July 26. Located downtown is CAM Raleigh, a non-collecting museum that thrives on exhibitions and other events. In the spring, the museum will mount the Raleigh Fine Art Society’s North Carolina Artists Exhibition 2020.
Each month the Downtown Raleigh Alliance hosts First Friday, a free public event from 6 to 9 p.m. where galleries, studios and museums stay open past their normal hours for a slate of exhibitions and special events. Also in the city is the annual Artsplosure: Raleigh Arts Festival where 170 juried artists exhibit work in 10 different categories along Fayetteville Street. The event happens each May with the goal of making art more accessible to the public.
The city of Asheville is home to hundreds of artists, performing venues, art galleries and events that have populated its neighborhoods. One of the most thriving is the River Arts District where artists have turned old factories and historical buildings into studios they work in year-round. Stepping into the studios and galleries, visitors can see the artists at work and discuss their creative processes. Located in downtown Asheville is the Asheville Art Museum, which recently underwent a major expansion and renovation and is set to reopen November 14. There will be a series of celebratory events to honor the expansion including a ticketed Grand Opening Celebration on November 9 from 6 to 10 p.m.
SHAIN GALLERY
2823 Selwyn Avenue, Charlotte, NC 28209, (704) 334-7744 www.shaingallery.com
Established in 1998, Shain Gallery has earned a reputation as one of the finest contemporary art providers in the Southeast. Located in the Myers Park neighborhood of Charlotte, North Carolina, and owned by Sybil Godwin, the gallery was awarded Charlotte Magazine’s “Best Gallery” distinction.
Shain Gallery serves a discriminating clientele of regional homeowners and corporations and represents over 40 different nationally and regionally acclaimed artists. The gallery offers consultation and acquisition assistance, an annual schedule of exhibitions and welcomes clients who are just beginning to collect art and those who have been collecting for years.
Godwin says, “Charlotte is one of the most rapidly growing cities in the nation. The art scene is growing quickly with it. We are so proud to bring so many
“Charlotte is one of the most rapidly growing cities in the nation. The art scene is growing quickly with it. We are so proud to bring so many nationally and internationally recognized artists to the market.”
— Sybil Godwin, owner, Shain Gallery
nationally and internationally recognized artists to this market.”
The gallery’s artists work in a variety of mediums and subject matters, allowing collectors to find a bounty of works to fill their homes. Among those represented are Andy Braitman, Curt Butler, Karen Hollingsworth, Geoffrey Johnson, Christy Kinard, J Louis, Yvonne
Mendez, Kim Schuessler, Sally Tharp, Alice Williams and Christie Younger.
On November 8 the gallery will open a two-artist exhibition featuring the landscapes of Braitman and Butler. Then, on November 22 is an exhibition for Johnson and Schuessler, featuring the former artist’s signature interior scenes and cityscapes and Schuessler’s colorful figures that often wear elaborate outfits.
ODYSSEY CO-OP GALLERY
238 Clingman Avenue
Asheville, NC 28801
(828) 505-8707 www.odysseycoopgallery.com Odyssey Co-op Gallery, located in the River Arts District of Asheville, North Carolina, features work by 25 local clay artists who produce functional pottery as well as ceramic art in the form of wall art pieces and sculpture. Among them are Trish Salmon, Nick LaFone, BlueFire, Libba Tracy, Anna Koloseike and Laura Peery. Each piece on display in the gallery is ready to go home with collectors to enrich their lives. The gallery also sells the work of many other talented ceramic artists who rent studio space in Odyssey Studios, which are adjacent to the gallery.
Among the beautiful works in the gallery are those by artists whose work is on display in other galleries across the United States and abroad. A number of its artists teach or have taught ceramic art. The diversity of the offerings is striking, and many visitors to the gallery comment on the extremely high quality of its ceramic art.
JULIE & TYRONE LARSON
(828) 280-1107 julieandtylarson@gmail.com
Julie and Tyrone Larson have been full-time artist potters since 1966. Their pottery and porcelain work has always included one-of-a-kind sculptural pieces and very limited edition designs. Their early work was distinguished by their use of gold and platinum lusters at a time when the prevailing ethic was toward subdued and earthylooking glazes.
Julie has personalized an old European technique of painting directly on the raw base glaze with a heavy application of the same glaze containing a variety of colorants. These pieces are then fired in a ceramic kiln to the fusion point of the glazes. Tyrone contends that “Julie’s Italian genes took control of her creative psyche when she painted her first tomato.”
Recently, coming full circle, Julie has gone back to her roots in fine arts and is now painting directly on ceramic tiles with glaze which are fired and then framed for hanging.
The Larsons’ work is included in many national collections including the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Julie and Tyrone recently had a 52 Year Retrospective exhibit at the Piedmont Craftsmen Gallery in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. This November, the couple will be featured artists at Odyssey Co-op Gallery.
ANGELA ALEXANDER
(828) 273-4494 info@angelaalexanderart.com www.angelaalexanderart.com Asheville, North Carolinabased artist Angela Alexander paints animals, but what she aims to capture through her art is the energy and emotions animals embody. Through her vivid use of color and signature style, Alexander communicates each pet’s unique personality. Sharp, quick strokes often depict movement and youthful energy, while looser strokes might inspire feelings of tranquility or nobleness.
“I paint the spirit of the animals, whether it be a dog or a bear,” she says. “For instance, the black bears in Asheville inspired me to paint Bearly a Care. They are mischievous, gentle giants, which I expressed by pairing peaceful blues with his mildly guilty expression.”
Along with her studio in the River Arts District, Alexander has ongoing exhibits at Woolworth
Walk Gallery in Asheville;
Asheville Aloft Hotel; Up Against the Wall Gallery in Kingsport, Tennessee; and the Loblolly Arts Gallery in Seneca, South Carolina.
WENDY WHITSON
NorthLight Studios, 357 Depot Street Asheville, NC 28801, (828) 423-4567 www.wendywhitson.com www.northlightstudiosasheville.com Wendy Whitson is doing what she loves most. She started early in life painting and drawing and was formally trained at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. Afterward, she worked as a graphic designer in Atlanta for over 20 years, before coming full circle to painting in 2002. With added perks of involvement in the community of the River Arts District, and the city of Asheville, North Carolina, as an advocate of the arts, her excitement for art and its deep connections is felt when in conversation with her.
“I’m inspired by the beauty all around me and from Eastern North Carolina where I grew up and still visit regularly. I’m happy I can tell a story through my paintings,” she says. That story is part of her initial process in the underpainting, which is composed of palette knife work and a random grid, which represents nature, and the organization and structure found within it. This grid turns into some aspect of each composition.
Whitson’s original paintings are in the studio she founded eight years ago, NorthLight Studios, in Asheville, and at the Wells Gallery, Kiawah Island, South Carolina. She also has ongoing exhibitions at Silver Fox Gallery in Hendersonville, North Carolina; Cindy Saadeh Gallery in Kingsport, Tennessee; and Taupe Gallery in Wilkesboro, North Carolina.
L ROWLAND
Phil Mechanic Studios, 109 Roberts Street #3A, Asheville, NC 28801
(760) 855-8663 leslie@lrowlandart.com www.lrowlandart.com
Much of L Rowland’s work focuses on ecological and technological concepts.
Many of Rowland’s paintings condense relatively complex scientific scenarios into single images. She explains, “These works include butterflies, bees, hummingbirds and other pollinators puzzled together with imagery of flowers from which they derive nectar and that they pollinate.”
Another ecological concept she’s explored is in her The Gifts They Bring series, which depicts animals and what they do to benefit the ecosystem and humans. “An example from this body of work shows a hawk puzzled together with wildflowers and suggests that the ecology of wild lands has interdependencies that are not a single connection deep,” Rowland shares. “The hawk and wildflowers rely on each other.”
Her work also focuses on technology and its relationship to the human condition. “We rely so much on technology in our contemporary world; binary code (computer code) is our most prevalent form of communication,” she says. “It occurred to me that binary code is in fact, the new universal language.” The revelation led her to a series of binary code paintings with messages people need and deserve to hear. Another technological series focuses on music soundwaves.
RIVER ARTS DISTRICT
Asheville, NC info@riverartsdistrict.com www.riverartsdistrict.com
In the River Arts District of Asheville, North Carolina, visitors can stop by the working studios and galleries of hundreds of artists in this transformed historic industrial neighborhood.
See artists at work making new creations, fine original artwork and discover the jewel of the mountains.
Since its early beginning, the River Arts District has grown rapidly every year, experiencing a huge burst around 2005. Continuing the tradition, many of the buildings have been purchased by artists, who in turn convert the space to working studios and co-op spaces. Today the RAD is undergoing improvements envisioned by community leaders, artists, residents and business partners to create a vibrant, long-term urban plan recognizing the French Broad River as one of Asheville’s great treasures. More than 200 artists work in the RAD and they all keep individual schedules and studio hours.
The very first Studio Stroll was in 1994, when the few artists in the district opened their doors to the public. It has since become the largest annual RAD event, where over 200 artists open for the second full weekend in November. Happening this year November 9 and 10, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days, visitors to the fall event can stop by the studios, galleries and eateries. In addition to the Studio Stroll, the second Saturday of each month, the River Arts District holds gallery walks, with most being open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The next event takes place December 10.
PINK DOG CREATIVE
342-348 Depot Street
Asheville, NC 28801
Hedy Fischer, hedy@pinkdog-creative.com www.pinkdog-creative.com
Once a bustling street due to the architecturally significant passenger train depot and Glen Rock Hotel, for the last several decades Depot Street was a mostly abandoned area. In 2010, 342 Depot Street was an 18,000-square-foot textile warehouse filled from one end to the other with boxes of cheap textiles. Two employees oversaw the operations.
Today it is Pink Dog Creative, a vibrant, colorful, mixed-use complex housing 21 artists, two restaurants, a gallery and retail businesses. There are now over 50 people working in the building. Randy Shull and Hedy Fischer combined their experience with historic renovations and interest in creating community to the 1930s warehouse. They approached it as an art project with the idea of creating a vibrant sense of place.
The gallery in Pink Dog Creative, aptly named Pink Dog Gallery, will open EVOKE—to Hear, to See, to Feel, to Smell & to Taste, an exhibition featuring the work of Christie Calaycay and Holly de Saillan from November 8 to December 1. The event is dubbed a multisensory installation and includes the metalsmithing and jewelry of Calaycay and the ceramics of de Saillan.
November 9 to 10, Pink
Dog Creative will participate in the River Arts District’s Annual Studio Stroll from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. During the stroll more than 220 artists open their doors to welcome the public for demonstrations, events, workshops and gallery receptions.
DEANNA CHILIAN
(720) 496-5001 artiscool@gmail.com www.deannachilianfineart.com
As a painter, Deanna Chilian considers herself an interpreter rather than someone who renders or describes. “My process is organic and responsive; I rarely work from a sketch or preconceived image, and I enjoy the puzzles and invitations I encounter along the way,” she says. “Each painting is a hand-built offer for a moment of connection and a chance to pause and be present in an increasingly chaotic and virtual time.”
Chilian works in oil and mixed media, including cold wax. She layers, reveals and obscures while working directly into the painting and mixing her colors both on the palette and the painting’s surface. “I enjoy creating texture and a sense of history, allowing the buildup of strokes and lines to show that ‘something happened here,’” she explains.
The artist is developing a new body of work inspired by her family’s history of surviving genocide and the resulting diaspora, and the issues born of that experience including identity and sense of place. Her work is on view in Asheville, North Carolina’s River Arts District at Phil Mechanic Studios and at Balsam Ridge Gallery in Waynesville, North Carolina.
PHILIP DEANGELO
Philip DeAngelo Studio
115 Roberts Street, Asheville,
NC 28801, (828) 989-5464 philipdeangelostudio@gmail.com www.philipdeangeloart.com
Philip DeAngelo is a lifelong artist who has been involved in just about every aspect of the fine art business for over 22 years. In 1997 he opened Sagemore Gallery in Ocean City, New Jersey. Later he was represented and published by Bruce McGaw Graphics with his work being distributed in over 60 countries. After showing at the prestigious International Art Expo in
New York City, DeAngelo and his wife, Tina, vacationed in Asheville, North Carolina, where they discovered a vibrant arts community and the incredible beauty of the surrounding mountains. It was quite literally a breath of fresh air after the hectic art scene in the northeast.
In 2008 they moved to their new mountain home and opened Philip DeAngelo Studio in the historic River
Arts District. The move allowed DeAngelo to re-create himself as an artist and to strip down his style to just a few simple elements. Moving from oils to acrylics and disregarding most of his formal training, DeAngelo now has a strong sense of space, incorporating the divine proportion into all of his work. Color theory, implied symbolism and a simple narrative combined with unique textures make his work highly recognizable.
He says, “I am told that
I see the world differently than most. A world of simple shapes, saturated colors and above all, texture. I believe in a God who is in love with beauty and He created this vibrant planet to reflect that beauty.”
PETER ROUX
Peter Roux Studio
Riverview Station #265
191 Lyman Street, Asheville, NC 28801 (508) 843-3955 rouxstudioavl@gmail.com www.peterrouxartist.com
Peter Roux’s landscapes speak to the nature of contemporary spatial experience, often informed by the vocabularies of the narrative edit. Motion, time and movement weave in as concerns in his abstract work as well, ultimately exploring similar themes. The artist, who lives and works in the Asheville, North Carolina, area says, “I like working with landscape as a platform for exploring the processes of contemporary seeing.”
In his Suspension series, Roux uses “epic” landscape subjects, such as clouds and wide-open spaces, as his visual pulls into illusory space. These are set against elements of flat mark making to highlight his artistic style. “I’m curious about all the dynamics that are set in motion by relating one type of visual vocabulary against another,” Roux says. “In these offsets I find tensions and relationships that reflect on how contemporary spatial language, and therefore contemporary space itself, can be understood.”
His work will be on view through mid-November in the solo show Determined Views at Gallery Orange in New Orleans, while his work can also be seen at Alan Avery
Art Company in Atlanta and Sky + Ground Contemporary Art in Asheville.
DANIEL MCCLENDON
349 Depot Street, Asheville, NC 28801 (269) 267-4113 daniel@danielmcclendon.com www.danielmcclendon.com
Daniel McClendon was raised in South Haven, Michigan, and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Western Michigan University. Today the artist, who focuses on abstract animals, has set up his studio in Asheville, North Carolina’s River Arts District.
“I use a combination of painterly and illustrative techniques to articulate my menagerie of abstract animals,” he says. “My work is derived mostly from a struggle with creative identity. In my early life I was exclusively a representational painter by choice and training, but I decided that I needed to shift to a format that would allow for me to express myself more authentically. Relying on my own philosophies is what guided this transition. My current approach is to begin each painting with total abstraction—a loose, non-objective black and white outline. This practice resonates with me in the sense that we are all dealing with the unknown.”
McClendon will participate in The Lift Open Studio Party at Lift Studios on December 7 from 6 to 9 p.m., and his work will be on view January 27 to February 1 during the Spotlight on Art Artists Market at Trinity School in Georgia.
NADINE CHARLSEN
(917) 656-1313 www.nadinepaints.com
During her years in New
York City, Nadine Charlsen’s work focused on old buildings, bridges and boats. She still paints city subjects both domestic and foreign. Now that she lives in Asheville, North Carolina, she also paints trains, street musicians, the River Arts District and scenery of Western North Carolina.
Charlsen works from her own photographs painting daily in her studio or as a resident artist in the River
Arts District. This becomes a creation of translating from the photographic image to the emotion of the painting. With this style, she transcends the confines of the photograph into a reflection of her emotional interest of that time and space. Charlsen believes the serenity of a painting is inherent even in the chaotic world of today. Color added to the light and dark values focus the viewer to begin to witness and become part of the story.
MARK BETTIS
Mark Bettis Studio & Gallery
123 Roberts Street
Asheville, NC 28801 www.markbettisart.com www.markbettisgallery.com
All the world’s an inspiration to painter Mark Bettis: buildings, trees, graffiti, clouds, people, billboards and bears. He lashes together such disparate subjects with color and texture and tremendous physicality. The results are sometimes abstract, sometimes figurative and sometimes a blend of styles, but the paintings are always bold and uplifting, lighting up any room.
Beginning with oils and cold wax medium, Bettis builds up multiple thick layers on wood to create fields of texture.
Such additives as marble dust and sand further enhance the background. Then he can work back into the layers of pigment to reveal different color combinations beneath. Scratching, cutting or smoothing with great energy, Bettis lets his paintings evolve organically. He observes, “Inspiration comes when I least expect it. But when it hits me I can’t wait to start painting!”
Bettis grew up in Chicago but later chose sunny Sarasota, Florida, as his home base. He attended the Ringling School of Art and Design, concentrating on computer animation, and then went to work as a designer in the advertising industry. His true love was studio art. Bettis seized an opportunity to relocate to the River Arts District in Asheville, North Carolina. His Mark Bettis Studio & Gallery is located in the Wedge Studios Building where he will host the group exhibition Larger Than Life, focusing on the figure, November 9 to 25.
CINDY WALTON
Wedge Studios
129 S. Roberts Street #2-A
Asheville, NC 28801, (828) 776-3034 info@cindywalton.com www.cindywalton.com
Born in St. Petersburg, Florida, Cindy Walton has been a committed artist from childhood. In 1988 she moved to Asheville, North Carolina, and eventually opened her gallery and studio in the River Arts District’s Wedge Studios. Walton received a baccalaureate degree in art from Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and returned to the University of North Carolina
Asheville where she earned a bachelor's in fine arts.
In her artwork, viewers will notice the inspiration of the warmth and effervescence of the Florida coast as well as the quiet energy of mountainous Western North Carolina. “The landscape around us is seen and always present. Color and light changes with the season and weather but the structure is a constant,” says Walton.
“As an artist, I am searching for a deeper level of expression of the natural world through writings and bold marks that travel in and out of the layers of oil paint and cold wax medium.”
Walton has a solo exhibition opening December 5, with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m., at Spotlight Gallery in Wedge Studios. Outside the River Arts District, her work can be found at Heart of the Matter in Brevard, North Carolina; Atrium Art Gallery in Charleston, South Carolina; Cincinnati Art Galleries in Ohio; Over the Mantel Gallery in Columbia, South Carolina; The O’Brien Gallery in Greensboro, North Carolina; and at Meghan Candler Gallery in Vero Beach, Florida.