Last year I stumbled upon an art exhibition in Concord, North Carolina. As I walked into one of the rooms and scanned the walls before I examined each piece more closely one painting stopped me in my tracks. It was a beautiful oil painting that made the viewer feel as if they were peeking through the trees at a lovely pond. I couldn’t stop looking at it! I quickly read the label posted next to it and learned about the artist Chrys Riviere-Blalock. A Cleveland County native, she studied at Parsons The New School for Design and Appalachian State University.
Through my post about exploring Concord, Chrys contacted me this summer and invited me to attend the opening reception of her latest solo exhibition. I was thrilled to hear from her and honored to attend. The exhibition was at the Tucker Student Center Gallery on the campus of Gardner-Webb University where Chrys had previously taught, located about an hour west of Charlotte in the town of Boiling Springs, outside the city of Shelby.
The exhibition, The Enterable Mirror: Water Paintings by Chrys Riviere-Blalock, featured nine oil paintings of varying sizes. I was so excited to see that the painting I saw in Concord was one of them – City Park, New Orleans. I especially loved this exhibition because it felt so peaceful to me. Being next to a lake or river or sitting on the beach has always been relaxing and anxiety-relieving for me.
All of the paintings were gorgeous but a few stood out to me. Shallows shows a close-up of the edge of a lake or river. You can just hear the water lapping the shore and the wind rustling in the low-hanging tree limbs. The way she shows the shadows amongst the water is amazing. I just wanted to put my toes in the water!
(left) City Park, New Orleans, (middle) Shallows, (right) Still Water
Creek Pool was like a cross-section of a creek with the colors going from almost black at the bottom to dark greens, light greens, and finally a sky blue at the top. You’re just waiting for a fish to swim by.
My new favorite, though, is Moss Lake. This painting wasn’t a close-up but instead a larger view of a lake, as if you were in a boat in the middle of the lake looking at the shore. It’s an autumn scene with lovely oranges, browns, reds, and yellows. What struck me the most was her use of the reflection of trees and clouds on the water’s surface. I’m ready to pack a picnic and go read by the lake!
Moss Lake and Creek Pool
The best part of the evening, though, was hearing Chrys speak about her motivations and painting process. She talked about how the perception of space fascinates her – “As the daughter of an architect it’s one of the senses that draws me, it’s in my DNA. Every generation views space and time differently.”
When something “fills [her] with wonder” she wants to paint it. As she paints a scene she tries to “put the viewer in the space.” That is one of the reasons that I love her works so much. You aren’t just an observer of her work but you can easily place yourself in the scene.
As a writer I could relate to her when she said that painting “isn’t magic. It’s a lot of hard work.” For each piece she paints and repaints and reworks the scene until she believes it is finished, although in her mind she said they are never really finished.
If you live in the area or are passing through I highly recommend a stop at this wonderful exhibition. It runs through next Friday, September 28. You won’t be disappointed!
New Stories From Old Towns 