Lynn Boggess returns to Biltmore Avenue
Lynn Boggess doesn’t tiptoe into the landscape — he plunges headlong. Forget dainty brushes and polite studio light; his tools are cement trowels and canvases big enough to demand scaffolding. A native of rural West Virginia, Boggess lugs the whole operation into the woods, working in whatever the day delivers — blue skies or blistering cold. The results are paradoxes in paint. From across the gallery, his canvases read like snapshots of wilderness: glistening rocks, sudden sunlight, air so damp you can almost taste it. Step closer, though, and the illusion fractures. What looked like landscape is but a jagged scrape of the trowel. As Boggess notes in his artist’s statement, “The paintings are not merely descriptions of scenes — certainly they do not denote a tourist’s vision. Rather, they reveal an intimate communion with a particular time and place.” This fall, The Haen Gallery on Biltmore Avenue hosts the 19th Annual Lynn Boggess Solo Show, an autumnal tradition that underscores the artist’s enduring dialogue with the Appalachian wilderness.
19th Annual Lynn Boggess Solo Show: Through November 30
The Haen Gallery / 52 Biltmore Ave., Asheville / thehaengallery.com