Contemporary Online Fine Art Gallery
Join us this month for our pre-season group show, featuring our fine artists new and old. On display will be works of photography, printing, sculpture, and painting worth cozying up to. Get a sneak peek at what we have in store for the upcoming season before anyone else!
Rose of Sharon by Karen Titus Smith
Artetude Gallery's Season of Sculpture features internationally recognized sculptors among the scenic winter landscape of Downtown Asheville's premiere Gallery community.
Robert Winkler has this to say about his own work: "My works began as ideas, based on form, volume and balance. At each stage of development, the exploration of light and shadow and the push against the force of gravity describe the tension of human experience, the conflict between the limitations imposed by our individual histories, and the ability of our minds to imagine other possibilities."
Amy Medford's sculptures focus on bringing out the natural qualities of the materials that she uses, while communicating the subtleties of interpersonal relationships.
Leonid Siveriver's sculptures portray a unique and powerful visual language inspired by ritual objects from ancient cultures. His current works display compelling and enduring modern sculptural forms demonstrating a mastery of classical composition and narrative.
Spirit #10 by Leonid siveriver
Tuesday, September 30 – October 25
Holomodor by Pat Zalisko
Meet the Artists, Opening Reception, Friday, October 17th, from 6-8pm
First Friday Art Walk, October 3rd, from 5- 8 pm
Vibrant Expressions will be featuring the work of Jeanne Bessette and Faye Earnest, two artists who use color
Barbara Fisher is a remarkably transformative painter; this is what drives her as an artist. The work is a visual investigation, a continual inquiry into the way things work, filtered through the artist’s eyes, mind and subconscious.
Robert Winkler, sculptor, builds upon an idea, using volume and balance to explore the contrast between light and shadow, gravity and levity. Without using one curved line, Winkler creates dynamic sculptures that twist and wind into spirals. The force of their serpentine forms move the viewer around the piece, following every potential path created by his work.
Pat Zalisko’s vibrant paintings are dense with the visual language of form, color and line. The artist’s abstract works on canvas combine paint and mixed media to create unique representations of ideas not linked to the visual world. This link to personal understanding is what makes Zalisko’s art specific and special to each who experiences it.
A portion of Artetude’s proceeds is donated to the SECU Mission Cancer Center in Asheville. Hours: Tuesday-Thursday, 10am to 6pm, Friday and Saturday 10am-7pm, Sunday 12-6pm.
For further information please contact the gallery at aelliott@artetudegallery.com or 828.252.1466
Thanks to everyone who attended the opening for Abstractions this past Friday, September 19th. We had a wonderful turnout and a fun evening with live music, great food, and local wine! This event not only served as a wonderful chance to show off our gallery and its fantastic artists, but it offered an opportunity to introduce our new full time Gallery Assistant Delaney Mills and bid farewell to our former assistant Anna Elliott.
Looking at you one and two by Robert Winkler, stainless steel, enamel, clearcoat
painter barbara Fisher with her works cause and effect, restless, approaching storm and what's in Front of you.
Painter pat Zalisko, with her works reflections from sugarloaf (left) and ozero (Right) sculpture: bablle on by robert winkler, guitarist: shane perlowin.
Kenn Kotara and Alyson Markell each use distinctive visual imagery to deliver two new bodies of work centered around the concepts of movement through line and figure.
New monotypes by Alyson Markell, sculpture by Amy Medford
New work on canvas by Kenn Kotara, sculpture by Leonid Siveriver
Works by Kenn Kotara, photograph by William Vandever
Ramona Bronkar Bannayan
Jo Ridge Kelley
William Vandever
Ramona Bronkar Bannayan, Jo Ridge Kelley and William Vandever each use distinctive visual imagery to deliver three new bodies of work centered around the concepts of foreground, middle ground and background.
Artetude Gallery is pleased to exhibit, “Circles and Cycles: Year 13”, a dynamic new body of work by renowned Asheville artist Kenn Kotara. “Circles and Cycles” will be on display at Artetude in downtown Asheville, beginning November 12 through January 7th, 2013, with an opening reception to take place on Friday, November 15, 2013 from 6-8 pm. “Circles and Cycles: Year 13”, continues an ongoing collection of works, as Kenn Kotara related which “address the complex and symbiotic relationships between nature and human nature”.
Kotara expresses the contingent or mutualistic symbiosis between nature and man so vividly. Through his work, one can see the linear patterns expressed in both the circle and grid configurations. The configurations are evident throughout his varied mediums. These patterns often mimic the interactional relationships shared by man and nature. He explains that within his latest body of work, “the creation of abstract art forms, in that I am both initiating and responding to various catalysts. These catalysts range from diverse, daily contemporary issues that humanity must deal with to the one, hand to the past romantic notions of nature on the other”.
Kotara is a native of Southern Louisiana with its rivers, marshlands and lush vegetation. Amongst the verdant natural environ of Southern Louisiana lives the iconic Spanish moss or Barbe espagnole. Barbe espagnole occurs as a common theme within Kotara’s “Circle & Cycles” series. Kotara explains that while “exploring the metaphorical mysteries of the Louisiana bayou, the imagery owes equal amounts to natural and abstract systems”. The abstract system for Kotara connects to an iconography, available only in specific geographical regions like his native Louisiana. He explained
that his two-dimensional works on canvas and paper, evolved into three-dimensional suspended screen structures moves his work one step closer to the natural source. Kotara relates that his “screen structures behave in much the same way – hanging, flowing, constantly in motion, however subtle. Activated by the invisible energies within an exhibition space – people moving about and air being manipulated by handling systems – these suspended screen structures respond as Barbe espagnole in nature, rarely in full repose.”
There is an openness to his suspended screen structures though he notes, “that the interference of the grid overlays obscures slightly, much as a veil blocks the perfect view. This is an entirely appropriate allegory, I think, to the notion of sensitive dependence within chaos theory – where very small, simple systems can cause other, more complex events.”
Kotara’s visual expression and artistic talent emerged in very early childhood. In grade school, he found inspiration from the stories and paintings by John James Audubon. Recognizing this innate talent for creating, his father, an engineer, encouraged him to put his talent to practical use. After studying architecture at Louisiana Tech University, Kotara took an academic hiatus to explore the world outside of school. For the next six years he took various labor-intensive jobs in the oil and construction industry. During this time, he began to draw detailed, exacting pen and ink drawings and found a deep satisfaction in illustrating. This re-emerging interest guided him back to Louisiana Tech at the age of 28 to earn a BFA in Graphic Design and later an MFA in Studio Art.
The narrative of his work continues to evolve, the shapes, patterns and colors in Kotara’s works offer a universal appeal and communicate through the abstraction in a language unique to each viewer of his work. For this reason, his work may be found in diverse venues, in numerous exhibitions, corporate, public and private collections throughout the world.
Full of subtle energy and life, his abstractions are profoundly contemplative and reflect Kotara’s own journey of his “inner world” observing, understanding and responding to the world around him. He invites viewers of his work to share that journey with him.
Sun symbols are among the oldest of all images that people have carved on stones, rocks, and bones. The symbol of the solar sphere was worn as a talisman by many ancient cultures. The sun is recognized as a shared source of life for all beings. “I am the Sun” is an exhibition by acclaimed artist Jeanne Bessette. The show open at Artetude Gallery in Asheville, North Carolina on Saturday, October 19, 2013 from 6-8 pm.
Bessette explained that “I am the Sun,’ is inspired, as is all of her work, by the internal landscape of our humanness, how we relate to each other and our world around us.” Bessette was born in Massachusetts, but spent her youth in the state of Rhode Island. It was there that she attended the Rhode Island School of Photography and began her path towards becoming a professional artist. Jeanne owned and operated a successful photography studio for thirteen years before she dedicated herself solely to painting. At one time Bessette remarked that she was “born to be an artist.” It is a passion and a present part of her daily existence.
Jeanne’s paintings are a method of storytelling, a contemplative way to escape the external world and immerse oneself in a milieu of emotion and connection. She is interested in human spirituality, quirks, and our emotional landscape. For this exhibition Bessette relates that, “the pieces in this series are my questions and curiosities exploring the concept and my personal belief that we are all connected; that there is no separation of identities but that there is a certain oneness to all things.”
Jeanne has achieved great recognition and success by striving to connect with her viewer on a level beyond words. She states it like this: “I love that my work touches people on a deep heart level... people share (this) when they see my work. It’s more than paint on a canvas. It’s an exploration into a storytelling method using paint and cloth. I tend to delve deeply in my work and people usually have a visceral reaction to that. It feels right when it happens.”
“ I am the Sun,” will be on display at Arteude Gallery from Tuesday, October 15, 2013 until Tuesday, November 12, 2013 at 89 Patton Avenue in Asheville, North Carolina.
Artetude Gallery, is delighted to announce, “Grounded: Meditations in the Human Form,” by renowned sculptor Amy Medford. Medford’s new work will be featured at Artetude Gallery beginning Wednesday, September 18, 2013 through October 15, 2013 with an opening reception to be held on Saturday, September 21, 2013 from 6-8 p.m.
In her latest exhibition, “Grounded: Meditations in the Human Form”, Medford endeavored to expose a truth, relation and connection between the earth and the human form. Medford’s work is rooted in ancient Eastern conceptualizations of death, birth, and renewal. These themes are manifested through her principal subject matter, the human form. Medford explains, “in order to reflect a personal connection to the human spirit ... a successful piece will resonate with the viewer, evoking a response to the truth that the work strives to employ.”
Medford seeks to cultivate her visual language and reveal, “ man’s endless fascination with the human condition...our relationships with ourselves and others.” Amy Medford accomplished her objective to refine her visual language with this body of work. The substantial bases of her pieces succinctly express form, earth, grounding and their interconnectivity.
Medford was born and raised in New Jersey, received her A.B. in Theater History from Cornell University, and went on to earn an apprenticeship at the Johnson Atelier where she mastered the “lost wax” technique of bronze casting.
The artist later traveled to Italy, her “spiritual home”, to study stone carving and further her practice of bronze and clay work in the small town of Pietrasanta, a Tuscan city made famous by Michelangelo’s affinity for the local stone.
Karen Titus Smith has had a 30-year career devoted to creating, designing and painting. Artetude Gallery is pleased to feature a new body of work from Ms. Smith entitled "Fleur Mélange": A Collection of Contemporary Florals. The exhibit will run from August 20 to September 13, with an opening reception for the artist on Friday, August 23 from 6-8 p.m.
Smith allows her art to be left open for question, critique and interpretation, not basing her pieces on a set idea or concept. Form and 2-dimensional form have been an important element in her process as a painter. Her 2D works deconstruct images. She breaks down the original forms, rethinks and then reconstructs them in a unique way. Her inspiration draws from her daily life, such as the beauty of her natural surroundings or a significant event. Her work stems from anything that impacts her thoughts, inspires a form, a shape, or an idea, which she then explores in a visual format.
She plays imagery against media, mixing objective and subjective “pushes”, enjoying the interaction between the contrasting imagery and forms. This fascination with form led to her exploration of 3-dimensional works. These forms began to take up actual space, creating a physical representation of her 2D realized forms. The expansion into 3-dimensional works allows light to and ultimately the experience of the viewer.
According to the artist, “the newest pieces are a combination of a cubist and organic approach. Some of the images you will see explore media, different approaches to application of paint and include found objects with a natural feel to them.” Cubist art was the first abstract form of modern art, which progressed at the beginning of the 20th century. It was a visual response to a rapidly evolving world by artists like Pablo Picasso and Georges Braques. Artists at this time were renouncing traditional Western art by challenging traditional concepts of form and of viewing the world. Karen Titus-Smith continues use of this concept in her latest work by fracturing the floral form.
A Pennsylvania native, Karen Titus Smith was born in the city of Narberth and received her BFA from the Moore College of Art in Philadelphia. She continued her studies in Philadelphia at The Tyler School of Art at Temple University and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She taught Fine Art courses at a number of institutions including the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and currently teaches at the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences, Loveladies, NJ and the Paul Robeson Center for the Arts in Princeton, NJ.
She has done commissioned mural sized paintings for many four and five-star hotels and corporate spaces throughout the United States. Smith has created works for many individuals and institutions, such as the prestigious presidential suite of the historic Willard Hotel in Washington, DC, The Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., The Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, and her most recent commissioned work for a private home in the Virgin Islands. Her works can be found in many public and private collections, such as McGraw-Hill Companies in New York, Rutgers University in New Jersey, and the Moore College of Art in Philadelphia.
On Saturday, July 20th 2013, Artetude Gallery hosted the Opening Reception for new works by artist Leonid Siveriver. The newly crafted sculptures are a continuation of the Spirit series that began for Siveriver in Israel, and were inspired by varied elements of ancient cultures. Specifically, African masks and primal war helmets.
In its original context, African masks and war helmets are a guise, one that endows the wearer with an alternate identity. This façade has for millennia been a universally accepted element of an armored warrior or protector. The form is also recognized as a facilitator between the living world and the supernatural world of the dead, ancestors and other mythological entities. Anthropologist Frank Herreman relates, “One of the most dramatic manners whereby the contact between humans and the supernatural acquire a visible form is at the moment that spirits under the form of masks appear… the mask is a means of partially or wholly covering the face or the body to render it unrecognizable, and through which the masker acquires another identity.”
In abstracting components of the mask and war helmet, Siveriver projects elements that symbolize virility, strength and spirit, through this a dynamic contemporary aesthetic is created.
Mr. Siveriver began his artistic journey as a schoolboy in Ivano Frankovsk, Ukraine. At the age of 14, he immigrated with his family to Israel where his passion for art continued, leading to entry into the world-renowned Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem where he received his bachelors degree in fine arts. His love of sculpture led him to Pietrasanta, Italy, where he began his study of both marble carving and bronze casting. He then interned at the Johnson Atelier Technical Institute of Sculpture in Mercerville, New Jersey before establishing his own studio in Roosevelt, New Jersey.
Artetude Gallery is pleased to announce “EquusArt” - a new exhibition of extraordinary monoprints by New York based artist Alyson Markell, from 17 June to 14 July, 2013.
Alyson Markell’s evocative and beautifully executed monoprints of the horse will invite the viewer to, as the Australian poet Pam Brown has written of the horse “[to project] peoples' dreams about themselves - strong, powerful, beautiful” and “giving us escape from our mundane existence”. Alyson’s profound love for and knowledge of the horse and the modern horse culture is reflected in this new exhibition “EquusArt”. Her artistic vision and technical mastery of the monoprint has enabled her to capture with emotional resonance the grace, power and fluidity of motion of the horse. EquusArt explores the abstract nature of the monoprint’s image transfer of ink that opens a door into a realm of expression that blurs the lines between the fine art of painting and printing. Markell’s unique creations of this enduring and powerful artistic and cultural symbol trace their lineage to the prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux circa 16,000 BCE through Impressionism and early modern art with Edward Degas and Pablo Picasso to the late-20th century works of Susan Rothenberg.
Markell’s artistic career includes over 10 years using her creative and artistic talents at Industrial Light & Magic, a division of Lucas Digital in San Francisco, California, where she created animal and human characters for dozens of blockbuster hit movies including Harry Potter (Sorcer’s Stone and Order of the Phoenix), Mission:Impossible III, Men in Black II, Jurassic Park III and Star Wars: Episode 1. Trained as a traditional sculptor, painter and modeler, Markell has garnered a well-deserved reputation for capturing the likeness of animals and fanciful creatures on film and in fine art. As of 2006, Markell has focused exclusively on monoprinting in her studio in New York.
Blue Rider
34 x 22
"Asman has turned his photographs into paintings, in which his swirls and puddles of selenium, bleach, tea, and sepia are transformed into colors that conjure the sublime."- Edith Newhall, Philadelphia Enquirer
Join us for the Opening Reception with Robert Asman, April 12, of his "Flesh and Vapor" exhibition which will run from April 9 to May 12, 2013.
In "Flesh and Vapor", Asman brings together two themes, clouds/vapor and body/flesh, into a shared construct in which the textures, shape and sensuality of the human form are reflected in, and in turn reflected by, the ethereal and evanescent nature of the cloud.
This exhibit comes at an important time as the use of traditional photographic darkroom processes are undergoing a renaissance by artists partly in response to the ubiquity and impact of digital technology. As a master innovator in the photographic darkroom, Asman is becoming increasingly viewed as one of this country's most important contemporary photographers and a leader in this new movement.
For most of the last thirty-five years, Robert Asman has been devoted to investigating and stretching the conceptual and technical boundaries of silver prints. As an alchemist of the dark room, Asman's unique, one-of-a-kind photographic monoprint creations come to form in the darkroom through the boundless manipulation of paper negatives and chemicals. His explorations and technique bind human form, urbanism and nature. Asman approaches art making as a transformative process, in which he mines the physical properties of his materials to create a work on paper in which process and image are one.
Asman has received multiple honors throughout his career, such as a Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. His work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia and at Galerie Paviot in Paris. Asman's work can also be found in numerous permanent collections, including The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.
An exhibition catalogue will be available at the Opening and updates and videos for this extraordinary and timely exhibition will be posted on this website, www.artetudegallery.com, and our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/artetudegallery. "Flesh and Vapor" will be exhibited at Artetude Gallery from April 10 - May 12, 2013. Please feel free to contact us directly at director@artetudegallery.com or 828-252-1466
Artetude Gallery was pleased to host the Opening Reception of Jo Ridge Kelley's exhibition "Simply Elegant" on Friday, 8 March 2013. The exhibition is scheduled for display till 8 April 2013 at 89 Patton Avenue, Asheville, NC.
Over 100 friends, guests, art lovers and gallery clients attended over the three hour event. Margaret "Kenny" Offermann MD, PhD, President of Artetude Gallery, Inc. introduced Jo who subsequently gave a brief but informative talk on the genesis, philosophy and artistic goals of the "Simply Elegant" exhibition and her Waterdance series of paintings.
As part of its In About a Minute series, Artetude Gallery has prepared two short videos focused on Jo:
Artetude Gallery is pleased to announce Simply Elegant, an exhibition of new work by Asheville artist Jo Ridge Kelley.
Jo Ridge Kelley is a well-known and highly regarded Asheville based painter whose impressionistic En plein air and studio studies of natural landscapes have garnered a wide national and international following. Beginning in 2008, Kelley’s work underwent a significant evolution after working with En Plein Air Masters, Kevin Macpherson, Kenn Backhaus and John Cosby. This new body of work forms the basis of her current exhibition at Artetude Gallery.
In this exhibit, Kelley’s new work reflects an evolution of her soft-edged, impressionistic En plein air and studio style towards a more abstracted interpretation of natural landscapes that utilizes bold new and sometimes unexpected color relationships on ever-larger canvases. The impact of her work is stunning with abstract but nonetheless recognizable images interwoven with an intense expressionistic palette of colorful grays, deep shadows and intense light. The effect of this interplay of structure, color, light and texture invites the viewer to appreciate and ponder the power and beauty of nature. A short, "In about a Minute" video highlighting the exhibit is here. Photographs of selected pieces are below.
Jo Ridge Kelley was born in High Point, North Carolina and raised in the Quaker tradition on a dairy farm where she developed an intimate connection with nature. She studied drawing and painting at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and graduated with a Bachelor of Creative Arts. After college, she taught art at the high school level for several years and continues today to conduct annual private workshops.
The paintings of Jo Ridge Kelley are held in many private and corporate collections throughout the country and across the globe. Her work was featured in American Art Collector magazine, Artist Focus Page, December 2009 and in a featured upcoming show article, May 2010. “The Laurel of Asheville” magazine, featured her work in an article and on the cover in October 2009.
The artist works in Asheville and with her photographer husband lives in Waynesville, NC. This exhibition marks Kelley’s first show with Artetude Gallery.
For additional information or visual material, please contact the gallery at (828) 252-1466 or email at director@artetudegallery.com.
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