You won’t see such a vibrantly colored, art-historical, personal and superficially joyous exhibition again soon. ’…If I’m Good in Bed,’ the Artery’s current and short-lived exhibition by Asheville painter Anna Jensen, handles more aesthetic and social facets than your average 16-painting show. It incorporates a fair share of advertising. It nods to historical players like … Read more
Inspired by Soto Zen Buddhism, the silver gelatin photographs of Brook Reynolds find a fitting home at Urban Dharma, a new Buddhist center at 29 Page Ave. in downtown Asheville. Her show Enso, meaning ‘circle’ in Japanese, is a Zen symbol for the interconnectedness and impermanence of life. Reynolds creates ensos by placing an object … Read more
Castell Photography once again brings nationally acclaimed photographic artists to Asheville with the group show, Shift. The four featured artists all deal in some way with shifts of time and space. Lisa M. Robinson’s c-prints capture moody and pale seascapes whose large size envelopes the viewer in their tumultuous state. Sharon Harper makes equally large … Read more
There may be no other substance as beloved and hated as hair. Cultural icons like Farrah Fawcett and The Beatles inspired social movements with their hairdos, while a lone hair typically provokes revulsion when found in a baked good, on a bar of soap or in the shower drain. Fascinated, artist Jan Parker has been … Read more
Immediately appealing about Sophia Allison’s work is her clean-yet-imperfect handmade aesthetic, and upon further examination, her sculptures and 2D images reveal layers of hidden meaning. The Los Angeles-based artist returns to her native Western North Carolina to exhibit Friend Among Strangers, a mixed-media installation that pays homage to her Appalachian roots. For Friend, Allison has … Read more
The biggest change for this year’s Lexington Avenue Arts and Fun Festival is that, while it won’t keep its two-day format from last year (that expansion was special for the festival’s 10th anniversary), it will include a Saturday night component. And that new addition, the Pre-LAAFF-A-Thon Pub Crawl, is an adult oriented evening of music, … Read more
DJ and multi-instrumentalist Marley Carroll is in the middle of a big year. His spring included touring with Emancipator and festival dates at Coachella and Sasquatch; at the end of June he opened for Moby. Twice. ‘This has been definitely the best year as far as touring and getting exposure,’ he tells Xpress. ‘I hope … Read more
LAAFF is more than bands, hula hoops, stilt walkers and costumes. It’s also educational. In fact, some of the festival’s interactive events teach skills, hone talents and offer workshop experiences that seem credit-worthy. (It may still be summer on the calendar, but school’s already back in session.) Here are two A-plus activities. Moving Minds Through … Read more
If it hadn’t been for a job at a pawn shop, Joe Lewis might never have learned to play the guitar. And then the soulful, juke joint blues rock of Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears would have never been a thing. But the Austin, Texas-based band proves with last year’s Scandalous that they’re very … Read more
Asheville-by-way-of-Portland-by-way-of-Asheville folk-noir outfit (and sometimes one-man band) Drunken Prayer was, according to press, inspired by a conversation with Tom Waits at a fish market in Sebastopol, Calif. The band, fronted by Morgan Geer, is back on home turf this week. Still touring this year’s gutsy, country-informed Into the Missionfield ("a journey down a path less … Read more
