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Charlotte Shristi and Ben McKeown present
new exhibits at the Jones House
By Jeff Eason
Farewell to Home
by Charlotte Shristi |
Song for a Swiftly Fleeting
Moment of No Return by Charlotte Shristi |
Photographer Ben McKeown
will present his new exhibit, Untitled, at the Mazie Jones
Gallery in Boone this month.
Photo by Jeff Eason |
Spend a few minutes with some High Country artists and you’ll
quickly realize that no two of them took the same path toward
making art. As a result, no two of them make anything close the
same sort of visual creations.
For example, the two artists opening new shows at the Jones House
Community and Cultural Center this month are young, bright and
industrious when it comes to creating their work. And that’s
pretty much where their similarities end.
Charlotte Shristi and Ben McKeown will present new artwork in
two separate shows at the Jones House in Boone during February.
McKeown will exhibit his photography in the Mazie Jones Gallery
and Shristi will display her unique paintings and other work in
the Open Door Gallery.
A public reception for the two exhibits will be held at the Jones
House on Friday, February 1st from 6:30 to 8 p.m. The exhibits
and reception are sponsored by the Watauga Arts Council.
A native of Iowa, Shristi studied last year at the Penland School
of Crafts in western North Carolina. There she learned to mix
oil pigment with molten wax for a technique called “encaustic
painting.”
“Encaustic painting allows me immediate experimentation with
texture and layering as well as the incorporation of drawing in
the form of incising lines, collage and mixed media elements which
are easily integrated with encaustic media,” said Shristi.
“My themes and process has been informed as much by my rich
life experiences as by formal study, including living for periods
in the Dominican Republic, on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona
where I was an elementary art teacher, in Nepal where I volunteered
with a human rights organization and trekked, and in Columbia
where I did peace advocacy work.”
Shristi stated that many of the works in her current exhibit were
inspired by the rocks, trees and streams surrounding her home
in the High Country. Utilizing the encaustic painting techniques,
she has been able to capture the fluidity of her surroundings
in her artwork.
Photographer Ben McKeown is a native of Raleigh who learned the
tricks of the trade from his mother, a professional wedding and
events photographer.
“I’ve been around cameras and photography my whole life
and first started helping my mother shoot weddings when I was
13 years old,” said McKeown.
His new exhibit in the Mazie Jones Gallery is called “Untitled”
and contains photographs taken in the Research Triangle area,
the Bahamas, Washington D.C., as well as in the High Country.
90% of the photos were taken with a digital format camera while
the rest were taken with conventional film.
In addition to the exhibit being titled “Untitled,”
each of the photographs is untitled. Next to each photo is a mounted
piece of paper where visitors can write down proposed titles.
“My work is based heavily around storytelling,” said
McKeown. “I believe that the point of my images, even the
ones that do not include people, is to tell a story, to convey
meaning or a purpose of some sort.
“Additionally, I believe that art at its core is most effective
when the viewer is called to make some sort of investment of their
own. It could simply be an emotional investment, as might be made
upon seeing a painting of a picturesque mountain scene that touches
a piece of the viewer’s self. It could be a responsive investment,
as is made at the end of a ballet in the form of applause. In
whatever form it occurs, I believe the art is truly art only when
the viewer is able to feel its purpose.”
McKeown stated that allowing viewers to propose titles for each
photograph will serve at least two purposes.
“By proposing titles for each work the art will become inherently
more meaningful to each person,” said McKeown. “Also,
the list of volunteered titles will hopefully become a significant
part of the work itself, for as new titles are volunteered, new
meanings and new understanding of the art will be made available.”
The exhibits of Ben McKeown and Charlotte Shristi are on display
from now until Friday, February 29th from noon to 5 p.m. Tuesdays
through Fridays.
The Mazie Jones and Open Door galleries are sponsored in part
by Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff and the Grassroots Funds of the
North Carolina Arts Council.
For more information, call the Watauga Arts Council at (828) 264-2789.
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