Stand Your Ground. Skip Rohde, artist
By Emma Castleberry
At Pink Dog Gallery in Asheville’s River Arts District, Common Ground Rising is on view through Sunday, September 20. The exhibition brings together more than a dozen artists whose works address war, political division, authoritarianism, climate change, censorship and the search for shared humanity. Through realism, printmaking and expressive contemporary painting, the exhibition considers how artists can document and respond to periods of uncertainty.
Participating artist Kimberly Dow says the exhibition grew from conversations with fellow artist Skip Rohde about politics and the role artists might play ahead of the midterm elections.
Ahmed. Chelsea Farley, artist
“I was finishing up a series of political paintings to vent my anger over current situations in the world, and he mentioned that we should do a show before the mid-terms to hopefully engage viewers and encourage voting,” Dow says. “If we do not step up and be loud and present, our freedom to express ourselves may not last.”
The artists approach those concerns from distinctly different visual perspectives. Virginia Derryberry’s Gravity vs. Levity depicts figures, fire and reaching hands within a birdhouse-like form, considering ideas of instability, rescue and compassion. Rohde’s Stand Your Ground juxtaposes an ordinary civilian carrying groceries with military tanks moving toward the US Capitol, while Dustin Spagnola uses imagery of Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump to examine authoritarianism, political power and historical memory.
“What connects all the artists in this show is their humanity and empathy,” says Dow. “There is not an artist in the show who doesn’t feel for other humans and want to see us find common ground in this country to move forward and make this a better place to live.”
Dow contributed seven paintings from her Bearing Witness series, works created in response to violence, suffering and abuses of power. Among the works, And the Child Shall Bear Witness depicts a boy holding a white flag against a fiery background. Another, The Mother of All Consequences, portrays Mother Nature as an older woman holding a dove while a city burns behind her.
She Held the Line. Kimberly Dow, artist
“The only difficulty in the series was choosing which modern horrors to depict, as there are so many,” she says. “It feels important that starving children be acknowledged. That bombs falling on humans are spoken about. That abuses by the ruling classes be addressed.”
The exhibition does not shy away from works likely to make some visitors uncomfortable. Rather than treating that discomfort as something to avoid, Dow hopes it encourages viewers to pay closer attention to events around them and consider how they might respond.
“I hope visitors seeing the uncomfortable pieces will realize how important it is to be aware of what is going on and doing what you can to vote and help in areas that you can help in,” she says. “We tend to want to distract ourselves as the hopelessness of current times can seem overwhelming to many, but we can not bury our heads in the sand or we will be stuck with tyranny and horrors.”
The common ground referenced in the exhibition’s title is less about political agreement than shared concern for other people. The participating artists come from different perspectives and belief systems, but Dow hopes the exhibition can emphasize values that cross those differences.
“I hope it brings us together as caring humans,” she says.
Pink Dog Creative is located at 348 Depot Street in Asheville. For more information, visit PinkDog-Creative.com.
