Flood Gallery presents diverse, "The Contemporary Female Gaze"

Exhibit to include works by Melisa Cadell, Angela Cunningham and Anne Bessac

The Valley Echo
November 18, 2020

“Jazmine” by Angela Cunningham is one of the pieces that will be displayed in “The Contemporary Female Gaze” exhibit at the Flood Gallery Fine Arts Center in Black Mountain. An opening reception for the show, which will also feature work from Anne Bessac, Melisa Cadell and a live musical performance by Ash Devine, will be held Nov. 21. Photo courtesy of Flood Gallery

The Female Gaze is a distinctive, but not a preordained schema based on a single perspective of the female gender. The rich diversity of the contemporary female gaze is shown by works of Melisa Cadell, Angela Cunningham and Anne Bessac, using distinctively different visual strategies to engage the human figure. Through this process, they have been opened to the interaction among themselves and their various working strategies.

Their collective work will be featured in The Contemporary Female Gaze exhibit in the Flood Gallery Fine Arts Center in Black Mountain, which opens with a reception from 6 p.m. - 9 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 21. The socially distanced event will include a musical performance by Ash Devine.

Although this process has been limited by COVID-19, all three artists valued the cross pollination of ideas that occurred, and their individual commitment to their own working process, and feeling energized by the exchange that this exhibit made possible.

 A year ago, Bessac researched figurative artists in the Asheville area looking for diverse approaches by women artists who worked with the human figure. She contacted Cadell and Cunningham to join her in this exhibit at the Flood Gallery. The dialogue between the artists has been rich.

Bessac’s work is grounded in the process of drawing from observation. Drawing is an act through which she comes to her world and herself. The act of observation is transformed from mimicry into the poetry of seeing. Bessac taught drawing and life drawing for 26 years on the university level. On graduating with her MFA from the University of NC at Greensboro, she was awarded the Chancellor’s Award for her drawing which currently is part of the Weatherspoon Art Museum Collection. In 2014 Bessac received The Faculty Sabbatical Grant to draw in Rome and its surroundings for 10 weeks. Her works were shown at a three person exhibit in Rome.

Work by Anne Bessac, including this piece titled “Female & The Duck,” will be featured in The Contemporary Female Gaze exhibit at the Flood Gallery, which runs from Nov. 21 through Jan. 31. Photo courtesy of Flood Gallery

Cunningham works both two and three dimensionally within the contemporary resurgence of classicism and its figurative atelier tradition. Her canvases are lush with a mastery of oil paint’s possibilities. She has pursued her passion for the classical techniques of drawing and painting under the mentorship of Jacob Collins at the Grand Central Academy of Art in New York City and graduated in 2010. She is a recipient of various awards including the Morris and Alma Schapiro Achievement Award, Art Renewal Center First Place Scholarship Award and the Alfred Ross Achievement Award.

Cadell is a ceramic sculptor who works with conceptual strategies to draw the viewer into visceral, emotional experiences. In some circles her work is considered provocative. She builds images to read like a well developed novel, giving the viewer layers of information needed to construct an inner dialogue that questions social structures. Cadell has taught the figure at Appalachian State University and East Tennessee State University, as well as workshops across the eastern U.S. Her sculptural work has been published in Ceramics Monthly, de Klein K, 500 Figures and American Style.

The three artists are looking forward to the public viewing their exhibit.

Devine is an award-winning songwriter, accomplished guitar and ukulele player, humanitarian performance artist and teacher once based in Asheville for over 15 years. Her music is influenced by her upbringing in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, world music studies, immersion in traditional Appalachian music and her international travels with M.D. and activist Patch Adams.

“Jacket,” is one of Melisa Cadell’s pieces, which are often designed to create an emotional experience for viewers. Her work will be included in The Contemporary Female Gaze exhibit at the Flood Gallery. Photo courtesy of Flood Gallery

The opening reception at Flood Gallery Fine Art Center in Black Mountain, next to Veteran’s Park, with live music by Ash Devine, will take place from 6 - 9 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 21. This event takes place in conjunction with the opening for the 15th Annual "Anything Goes…Everything Shows!" Mail Art Exhibit.

Social distancing will be observed, with spaced browsing and outdoor refreshments. Please wear a mask.