April 2013

Flood Gallery Fine Arts Center in Asheville, NC, Features Works by Margaret Curtis

The Flood Gallery Fine Arts Center in Asheville, NC, will present Margaret Curtis: End of Empire, on view in the Flood Gallery, from Apr. 5 through May 25, 2013. A reception will be held on Apr. 5, from 6-9pm.

Curtis thinks making art is an abnormal activity, albeit a positive one. She states: “Art making, in my opinion, springs from imbalance. It is an attempt to provide truer meaning and order to a cultural world of smoke and mirrors. The culture that most people take for granted and never bother to question is a giant irritant to the artist. Even artists that make beautiful work do so from this raw, aching place.”

The narratives in Curtis’s work are fictions woven of childhood memories and grown up perspectives and concerns. The paintings explore the subtle and sometimes devastating ways that notions of power influence our private lives and relationships. “The personal is political, especially for women, and these paintings reflect that. I have tried to paint them directly and quickly not worrying too much about technical stuff. I want them to be emotional and immediate and fun to look at,” says Curtis.

Curtis has been exhibiting her work for more than 20 years in places like the P.P.O.W. in New York City, the Nexus Contemporary Art Gallery in Atlanta, the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art on Staten Island, the Zolla/Lieberman Gallery in Chicago, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

Jerry Saltz, from Art in America has this to say, “Margaret Curtis’ paintings proved you can have your cake and eat it too. Inherently political, yet frivolously beautiful, these drifting gossamer images told tales of the difficult lives of girls and women.”

For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Center at 828/255-0066 or visit (www.philmechanicstudios.com).

[ | April 2013 | Feature Articles | Download Carolina Arts' Current Issue | Carolina Arts Unleashed | Home | ]