Red Beret. Marsha Hammel, artist
The Gallery at Flat Rock will present RetroForward, a restrospective of paintings and drawings by Marsha Hammel opening Thursday, April 26, from 5–7 p.m. and running through May 20. Hammel, a Hendersonville artist who has been exhibited nationally and internationally, will give an artist talk at the gallery on Saturday, May 5, at 3 p.m. Both events are free and open to the public.
Hammel’s colorful canvases depict musicians, singers and dancers in nightclubs, in bars and on streets. Works for RetroForward were created from 1987 to 2017.
“Recently, as plans for a retrospective began to form,” Hammel says, “I found inspiration in the dozens of sketchbooks that I had hauled around for decades. Quick gesture drawings of musicians on the street and in smoky jazz clubs, a meditative expression on the face of a saxophone player, the stances of electric guitar players as they pour their souls into the amp.”
Pieces in the exhibit also celebrate racial harmony. “As late as the second decade of the last century in America, it was in music that people of different races and cultures could come together to create new worlds,” Hammel says. “My memories of musicians in New Orleans, Miami, New York and everywhere in between almost always had a multi-racial element. In music, we can all get along.”
Hammel’s work is timely, says Suzanne Camarata Ball, owner of The Gallery at Flat Rock. “She embraces the realism of our melting pot and shows how we are, at heart, the same. We are just thrilled to represent her in the gallery.”
The Gallery at Flat Rock is located at Flat Rock Square at 2702-A Greenville Highway in Flat Rock. Regular gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; or by appointment. To learn more, visit galleryflatrock.com or call 828.698.7000.
