Unexpected Inspiration. Cynthia Brody, artist
An exhibition of work by Cynthia Brody, Familiar/Impossible: Surreal Images of Women, opens Tuesday, September 1, at Asheville Gallery of Art, where it will remain on view through Wednesday, September 30. An opening reception is scheduled for Friday, September 4, from 5–8 p.m.
The exhibition features mixed-media works that combine digitally manipulated photography with oil painting. The collection includes both earlier works and newer paintings created since Brody’s move to Western North Carolina.
“Many years ago I began to notice that most patterns, shapes and designs replicate in Nature,” she says. “I’ve been combining photo collage with paint for over 50 years with this insight in mind. I love using photos of natural forms as visual texture to make the viewer look more closely and share the fun I have in tricking the eye into thinking it sees one thing but realizing it is something else in reality…Hair might be comprised of tree lichen or waterfalls. Insect wings are believable as clothing and mushrooms are useful as headpieces. So, what seems familiar may be composed of unrelated elements which make the whole scene impossible.”
The exhibition centers on women from many cultures and draws on Brody’s longstanding interest in the emotional and psychological dimensions of her subjects. Her career as a psychotherapist has also informed the themes that run throughout her work.
Nature Girl in Red. Cynthia Brody, artist
“I call my process ‘Making Friends,’” she says. “This is because I form a relationship with the subject while creating her though I never work from life. I find images of women, most often from the last century. In earlier pieces I collaged faces, but in the last 10 years or so I’ve mostly painted the faces in my quest to become a better painter.”
Living among the Blue Ridge Mountains and experiencing Hurricane Helene influenced both the imagery and emotional tone of Brody’s more recent paintings, with storm debris and mountain wildlife finding their way into compositions.
“With the photos I took of downed trees, I was compelled to morph the final image into something beautiful,” she says. “Hats and clothing were created from shots of detritus. the expressions of the women wearing them reveals the sorrow. I started one piece of a woman lying down with bears, the Blue Ridge Mountains behind her, before the storm and worked on it outdoors when we had no electricity. At one point, I was lying on my couch in the dim light through the window looking at the woman lying down and thought, ‘I have become my painting.’”
Although her materials and techniques have evolved over the years, Brody says her artistic focus has remained constant.
“People have been asking me for years why I only focus on women,” she says. “All I know is if I created a landscape, I’d be wondering where the women went.”
The Asheville Gallery of Art is located at 82 Patton Avenue in Asheville, across from Pritchard Park. Hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. To learn more, call 828.251.5796, visit AshevilleGalleryofArt.com or follow the gallery’s Facebook page.
