Arts Galleries

Blue Spiral 1 Celebrates the Legacy of Robert Johnson

New Leaves. Duy Huynh, artist

Blue Spiral 1 Fine Art + Craft Gallery (BS1) presents Safe Spaces, North Carolina: Robert Johnson, Will Baker, Bryant Holsenbeck opening Friday, September 3, and running through October 29, in the Main Gallery. The exhibition is the largest in BS1’s history, and features more than 90 works by Johnson (1944–2021) accompanied by Will Baker’s ceramic vessels and Bryant Holsenbeck’s animal sculptures. A portion of proceeds from all sales will be donated to NC State Parks.

Safe Spaces is four years’ worth of observation and patience from Johnson’s quest to visit every North Carolina state park and record what he felt to be of utmost importance,” says BS1 assistant director and curator Candace Reilly. “The exhibition is a pinnacle of his career, and, we believe, the most perfect way to celebrate his life and legacy.”

Johnson’s work includes paintings, annotated drawings and illustrations of the animals, geology and vegetation he came across at each of the 41 parks. His signature style includes often exaggerated scale and detail, creating paintings reminiscent of an era when the diversity of flora and fauna existed undisturbed by human development, and intact and reliant on its own system of balances.

Mt. Mitchell State Park. Robert Johnson, artist

BS1 also hosts three other exhibits from Friday, September 3, through October 29. In the Showcase Gallery, Natural Order: Josh Copus, Duy Huynh, and Douglas Miller explores the world through the lenses of a ceramicist, a painter and an illustrator. Copus relies on clay to draw a connection to, and reveal the natural beauty of, the physical earth. Huynh uses symbolism and surrealism to create his own narratives of the human condition and world order. Miller combines ink, pencil, coffee, makeup and paint to arrive at indeterminate resolutions about the animals and critters he hears at night.

The Small Format Gallery houses Broken Volumes: Thomas Campbell, a solo show of steel sculptures by Campbell, whose aesthetic is a reflection of industrial history and contemporary design. Campbell creates freestanding and wall sculptures that have been welded, powder-coated and polished to reveal curvilinear abstractions reminiscent of the complex architecture of industrial piping systems.

“I am a fifth-generation steel worker who learned the trade working for seven years at my family’s 135-year-old steel fabrication business, Bemberg Iron Works, in Little Rock, Arkansas,” says Campbell. “I use my work to honor this familial tradition by drawing upon the aesthetics and processes that have dominated the steel industry for decades.”

Using collage, layers of paint, carving tools, mechanical gears or the laws of architecture and design, the artists in the Lower Level Gallery exhibition In Balance allow their material practice to result in works which give a sense of balance and harmony.

Participating artists are Peter Alberice, Eleanor Annand, Kenneth Baskin, Charles Goolsby, Donald Penny, George Peterson, Akiko Sugiyama and Katie Walker.

Blue Spiral 1 Gallery is located at 38 Biltmore Avenue, Asheville. Hours are Sunday through Tuesday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Wednesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, visit BlueSpiral1.com or call 828.251.0202.

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