New art blooming at Turchin
February 23, 2023
Spring into March with the Turchin Centers for the Visual Arts’ annual Spring Exhibition Celebration as part of downtown Boone’s First Friday festivities.
The event happening on March 3, 5-9 p.m. highlights the opening of three new exhibitions at the art center. During the celebration guests can meet and interact with several of the featured artists in the center’s galleries. Hands-on artmaking will be offered in the center’s Moskowitz Gallery and a performance by artists de’Angelo DIA and Renee Cloud will take place throughout the evening, in correspondence to the Say: Word exhibition.
The Turchin Center is located off King Street. Admission is free and the center is open to the public Tuesday to Thursday from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Say:Word, a site-specific installation by Renee Cloud and de’Angelo DIA
Community Gallery: Jan. 20 – June 3
The Say:Word exhibition is one of the three new installments. This exhibit was constructed by Charlotte resident and App State alumni Renee Cloud and de’Angelo DIA, the Community Relations Manager of Goodyear Arts based in Charlotte. The art piece “examines misrepresentation, cultural appropriation and the significance of cultivating one’s own narrative and the distribution of those narratives,” according to the Turchin Center. The piece is indicative of the numerous questions raised when presented with shocking narratives and statements. According to the Turchin Center the title serves as a rhetorical question and challenges viewers to contemplate, “if we are processing the same reality, how are we coming to a diversity of conclusions?” according to Turchin Center
“Flux”: Signe Stuart Hodges Gallery: Jan. 20 – June 3
The “Flux” installment was crafted by Signe Stuart, an acclaimed artist from New Mexico whose experimental pieces break away from standard concepts of framing. The installation “alludes to natural and manmade networks from rivers, neural pathways and quantum fields to systems of transportation and communications,” according to the Turchin Center. “Flux” unintentionally references the unified field theory of everything that ties together all forces of nature.
20th Annual Appalachian Mountain Photography Invitational
Bickers Gallery : March 3 – June 3
The 20th Annual Appalachian Mountain Photography Invitational is hosting six Appalachian photographers in this year’s anniversary invitational exhibition. The artist’s work ranges from landscapes captured by local Jessica Maceda, to candid portraits capturing the local skate scene by Alicia Green. Other featured artists include Byron Tenesca-Guaman whose work highlights the relationship between humans and the mountains in his homes of an ancestral community, Ecuadorian Andes, in the Cherokee Mountains. There are also works from artists Raymond Thompson Jr., Ant M. Lobo and Wendy Ewald. Thomson brings forth the importance of African American narratives while Lobo’s work reveals intimate images from revisiting Black Mountain College’s Lake Eden campus.
Continuing Exhibits Include:
Altered Environments/Tidalectics, April Flanders, Guest Curator
Marilee Salvator: Site-specific installation
Gallery B and Overflow: Dec. 2, 2022 – May 6, 2023
The “Altered Environments”/Tidalectics exhibition merges art and nature together in an installation focused on aquatic environments. Artists in the Tidalectics print portfolio, organized by Eveline Kolijin, partnered with marine biologists to curate visuals coinciding with their research on marine ecosystems. The works in “Altered Environments’” portfolio, pieced together by April Flanders, addresses the impacts arising from invasive organisms in marine environments. Artist and naturalist Marilee Salvator crafted the site-specific installation in response to the invasive aquatic species Cribrilina mutabilis.
Kiliii Yuyan: Thin Places
Gallery A: Dec. 2, 2022 – May 6, 2023
“Thin Places” is a personal installation of Kiliii Yuyan’s personal songline, tracing the journeys of his ancestral spirits as they guided his way home.
“I may be separated from my ancestral communities by history and hostile borders, but sometimes my ancestors are right there in front of me, blazing in the night,” Yuyan said, according to Turchin Center.
Photographs in the exhibit “provide a glimpse for the viewer into the Thin Places of the Arctic North from a deeply personal Indigenous perspective,” according to the Turchin Center.
Mayer Gallery: Nov. 4, 2022 – May 6, 2023
Transformations: App DigiFab exhibition explores how new technologies are utilized and taught by contemporary artists, designers and architects and their influence in several fields.
ARTtalks at the Turchin:
ARTtalks at the Turchin are offered to provide deeper insight into the work that goes into producing creative pieces. The talks are led by exhibiting artists, scholars and practitioners. These talks are free to the public and more information on them can be found on the Turchin Center’s website.
