January 2011

Hickory Museum of Art in Hickory, NC, Features Works by Chrys Riviere-Blalock & Andrew Fullwood

The Hickory Museum of Art in Hickory, NC, is presenting two solo exhibitions by North Carolina artists including: North Carolina Landscapes by Chrys Riviere-Blalock, on view through Feb. 12, 2012, and Andrew Fullwood: Origins, on view through Feb. 26, 2012.

Chrys Riviere-Blalock resides in Shelby, NC. She began the series featured in this exhibition four years ago, after recognizing “a sense of urgency in the need to respond as a painter to the beauty and fragility” of landscapes in rural Upper Cleveland County. Since then, this body of work has grown to include other pastoral regions in North Carolina. This project was made possible by the NC Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources.

Riviere-Blalock offers this statement about her work: “Although my work addresses what is perceived visually, the aim is to embrace the seen and the unseen. My process of painting is simple: seeing and responding. What I see is exhilarating…vast space, a robust and wondrously alive landscape that is simultaneously as delicate and fragile as each spring’s new leaf. The transience of this physical environment becomes a mirror for an inner reality, a metaphor for the awareness of human mortality coexisting with the exuberance of life.”

Riviere-Blalock studied in New York at Parsons The New School for Design where she met and was greatly influenced by painter Alice Neel. She earned an MA in art at Appalachian State University. She has lived and taught in small colleges in western North Carolina for 25 years, teaching summer 2007 in Provence, France. In 2008 her work was chosen by art critic Dr. Irving Sandler for inclusion in the exhibit, Irvin Sandler Selects, at Prince Street Gallery in New York City. Riviere-Blalock is a 2011 recipient of the North Carolina Regional Artists Project Grant from NC Arts Council and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Arts and Science Council.

Andrew Fullwood is a self-taught artist with a background in biology. He is part of a family craft tradition spanning five generations of skilled furniture makers. Origins features 16 sculptures, many of which are life-size, accompanied by some of the artist’s biomedical illustrations. In his personal statement, the artist writes: “I love the warmth and great material diversity of wood: each species has different colors, grains, properties. The variety of organic shapes into which wood naturally grows, and the character-giving knots and imperfections stretch imagination into new territory.”

Fullwood resides in Chapel Hill, NC. He has a Bachelor of Science in Zoology and a medical degree, both from the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Fullwood recently was awarded Best in Show at the 2011 North Carolina Woodcarving Festival in Raleigh, NC.

Fullwood will give a gallery talk at the Museum on Jan. 29, 2012 at 2pm. Join the artist for a walk-through of his exhibition. He will also bring a selection of wood-working tools and demonstrate his process.

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Museum at 828/327-8576 or visit (www.hickoryart.org).

[ | Janaury 2012 | Feature Articles | Carolina Arts Unleashed | Gallery Listings | Home | ]