Two Artist Exhibits at MAHEC Education Building

Local artists Rich Elwyn and Valerie McGaughey have works on display in the Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC) Education Building at 121 Hendersonville Road in Asheville now through January 31. The exhibits are open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

MAHEC organizes the exhibits with the help of Wendy H. Outland, owner of Who Knows Art and consultant to visual artists and arts organizations. Four times a year, Outland partners with MAHEC to exhibit two local artists’ work.

“My goal for each set of shows at MAHEC is to select two very different kinds of artwork,” says Outland. “For these two, one offers a sense of history, and the other a dose of fun! McGaughey’s distinctive portrait work is presented on panels of fabric that flow from attractive hanging elements. Elwyn’s fish paintings incorporate bold colors and a sense of whimsy.”

Elwyn started painting folk art originally to show his son how easy it was. For the past few years, he’s been painting colorful, fanciful portraits of animals on wood, a medium folk artists often use. For the MAHEC exhibit, his eight fish paintings contain personality, cartoonish aspects and a sense of the surreal.

McGaughey designs her pieces in a way that she hopes addresses the question ‘Where does art come from?’ Her Spirit Woman Collection incorporates several of Carl Jung’s archetypes and delves into the subconscious. The collection is a type of FiberArt, which incorporates many mediums of design, including fabric, to express emotions.

“Art comes from within all of us,” she says. “I hope my art inspires others to discover their mythological, ritualistic and symbolic archetypes.”

Exhibits are free and open to the public. For more information on the artists, visit fiberart.gallery and Rich Elwyn Folk Art on Facebook. For more information about the exhibits, email Wendy H. Outland at info@whoknowsart.biz.