Opening: Friday December 4,  5 – 8 pm
Asheville Area Arts Council Gallery 

11 Biltmore Avenue, Downtown Asheville

In the main gallery, the group show artists include fabric artist Meg Manderson and painters Gloria Gaffney and Mark Holland. In the large basement area downstairs is work by Heather Lewis. This lower space, which has not been used for exhibiting before, has an industrial look that suits Lewis’ large light installations.

Artist bios:

Meg Manderson 

A lifelong desire to express the beauty she sees in nature has inspired Meg Manderson to combine her love of the tactile qualities of fabric with landscape art to create “fabric paintings.”  Meg works with hand-painted, hand-dyed and commercially produced fabrics. Using fiber paints, pigments from native soils and natural dyeing techniques, she creates yardage from which she choose the areas that lend themselves to achieving her vision. Manderson has studied with the acknowledged masters of fabric painting and art quilting. She has practiced her art and craft for over 25 years.

Heather Lewis

Heather Lewis is a British visual artist, born in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, currently living and working in the Asheville.  She holds a Masters Degree in Fine Art from the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design at the University of Dundee, Scotland.   Lewis’ work has been shown in solo and group shows in galleries in the United States and abroad including the Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York (in collaboration with Amy Guggenheim). Her current work uses light in several ways to play with shadows and reflections that incorporate some traditional qualities of drawing, but also offers new possibilities. “Light installations take art off the paper or canvas, introducing questions of scale and value.”

Mark Holland

For Mark, each painting has a story in it and is a narrative of the thoughts he had at the time of its conception.  He loves fantasy, frivolity, vanity, the sacred and profane, the tragic, the lost, the joy and  “I want my work to show that to others. We as a human race have all those emotions in us and the artist reminds us to honor and enjoy those feelings and embrace what is human.” He has been a recipient of many national art awards, as well as works in private, corporate, and university collections.

Gloria Gaffney
Gloria Gaffney is an oil painter living and working Asheville since 1995.  Ms. Gaffney’s work has been used in conjunction with Bele Chere Festival, the Asheville Lyric Opera, the Biltmore Estate and UNCA. Ms. Gaffney works ‘en plein air’, completing the artwork at the site of inspiration and can be seen painting at her easel on the streets of Asheville throughout the year.