Arts Galleries

Gallery 164 in Waynesville Showcases Work of Ben Hamburger and Mary Leavines

Franconia Ridge, New Hampshire. Mary Leavines, artist

Throughout October, Gallery 164 celebrates the outdoors with works by painter Ben Hamburger and photographer Mary Leavines, both of whom draw inspiration from the beauty of the natural world. Hamburger is based in New Orleans, LA, and Leavines, a Louisiana native, lives in Franklin. Each enjoys representing Western North Carolina in their work.

Leavines took advantage of her 2022 thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail to add to her portfolio, documenting her six-month journey as she has documented her travels for many years. “Most of my imagery is from places where cell signal doesn’t exist,” she says, “where the din of front-country life fades to the silence of the backcountry.”

Staccato. Ben Hamburger, artist

What caused her to marvel, she adds, is how close civilization and development always seemed to be. “You have this idea that you’ll be totally immersed in the wilderness on a journey like that, but the truth is that you could feasibly walk or hitch a ride into town every other day for most of the trail,” she says. “There’s a sadness in this juxtaposition: this idea that we’ve encroached so far into the wild, but there’s a sense of hope in having nature so close at hand as well.”

Plein air painting informs much of Hamburger’s work—whether it’s capturing the “combination of lush foliage and tightly clustered architecture in New Orleans” or taking trips to WNC for cooler outdoor painting sessions. “No matter what other projects I am working on, I return to observational landscape painting sometimes to inform other work, and other times to refresh, ground myself or just get back to what I know I like to do,” Hamburger says.

“My landscape paintings show two things at once,” he says, “a place and a unique combination of shapes and paint application that generate that illusion of place. Within the recognizable subject matter are varying degrees of abstraction, and I hope the interaction between the two stimulates viewers’ visual thinking in a similar way that mine was while making the work.”

Gallery 164 is located at 164 South Main Street, Waynesville. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Learn more at Gallery164.com.

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