Traverse by Jean Gumpper
Blue Spiral 1 Invites the Outdoors In
Asheville’s Blue Spiral 1 celebrates the grandeur of autumn in the mountains with four exhibits from 20 artists on display through November 11.
In Gallery One’s Clouds and Waves, artists capture the swelling motion of nature’s cycles in paintings, photography and sculpture.
Gallery Two brings the outdoors inside with Outdoor Inspiration. Landscapes and foliage—depicted in colorful ceramics, quilts, paintings, relief prints and even kaleidoscopes—grace the walls.
Among the debut artists is relief printmaker Jean Gumpper, who says it is love of science and the outdoors as much as training in the arts that influences her work. “I love hiking,” she says, “and all of my work has some connection to the natural world.” She creates detailed drawings on birch plywood, which then get carved away—sometimes with a pang of regret, she adds—in the process. “I love the physicality of carving, the gestural possibilities of it.”
Artist, Julyan Davis
The realistic landscapes of Julyan Davis tell stories upon the walls of the Small Format Room. British-born Davis’ artistic career has been based in the American South with the last two decades spent in Asheville. He has always been “drawn to the strange and often dark threads that run through Southern history,” he says. Select works from his Murder Ballad series will be on display on the gallery’s main floor.
He hopes viewers see his work in a similar manner in which they see the world at large, one detail at a time, one observation building upon another. “I always seek to evoke a mood in the viewer,” he says, “and a painting they feel they have discovered in their own way.”
The Showcase Gallery features two artists: Duy Huynh and Deborah G. Rogers. Huynh’ s paintings have an ethereal quality while Rogers’ ceramic and mixed media pieces have been called “both complex and whimsical.”
Blue Spiral 1 is located at 38 Biltmore Avenue and is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
