301-2 Kinsey Street / Raleigh, NC / 27603 / PH (919) 754 - 8452
Julie Armbruster, Alli Good, and Gabriel Shaffer
Exhibition
Left content (narrow):
Of the Three:
Julie Armbruster
Alli Good
Gabriel Shaffer
Reception: Friday, May 7, 6 - 10 p.m.
Crumb: cups of cake &
Joe Van Gogh: coffee!
Rebus Works is pleased to announce Of the Three. This exhibition features the work of Julie Armbruster, Alli Good, and Gabriel Shaffer. Of the Three opens on April 2 with a First Friday reception from 6 – 10 p.m. It will be on view through May 29, 2010.
These three artists, all of Asheville, represent the fresh art scene emerging in western North Carolina where talented self-taught artists like Good and Shaffer exhibit alongside talented classically-trained artists like Armbruster. Their work is colorful, urgent, and often humorous. Some paintings in the exhibition tow the line between humor and discomfort, like Good’s Worm Food. Good writes that this new work explores the “deep-rooted connections we all have to these stories [Aesop’s fables, folk tales, mythology], lost-paused memories with images of beauty and terror swirling together.” With her dark and funny style, she makes those connections palatable and captivating. Armbruster, who received a Masters in painting from New York University, also works with story-based themes. Her cleverly-named characters appear and reappear in exquisitely detailed paintings, playing out narratives of Armbruster’s creation that explore issues like “volatile friendship and scientific mutation. ” Finally, Shaffer’s work combines layers of found materials like old hotel ledger sheets with bold painting and comic inspired characters.
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Julie Armbruster |
Julie Armbruster |
Julie Armbruster, Anatomical Gardens |
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Alli Good, Worm Food |
Alli Good |
Alli Good, Birdfish |
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Gabriel Shaffer |
Gabriel Shaffer |
Gabriel Shaffer |
JULIE ARMBRUSTER
Julie Armbruster has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in galleries throughout the East Coast and Abroad, including the School of Architecture in Venice Italy, 80 Washington Square Gallery in New York, and Rebus Works. Often seeking shows in alternative spaces, her work has been exhibited in skate shops, bars, music venues, restaurants, and record shops. In addition, her work is in permanent public collections including Mission Children's Hospital and the United Way Building in Asheville, NC. Armbruster was born in Voorhees, NJ in 1979 and has lived in New York most of her life. She received a Masters in Painting from New York University in 2003 and has studied abroad in Italy and Germany. Following grad school, she moved to Asheville, North Carolina where she maintains a studio at The Wedge in the River Arts District.
ALLI GOOD
Alli Good’s paintings and works are a quasi-autobiographical exploration of family, social anxiety and feminism, tackled in the dark, surreal, but often humorous style for which she’s known. A self-taught artist, Good’s paintings, influenced by comic and pop art, depict large, fleshy females in unsparing and sometimes grotesque nudity, exploring deeply-ingrained issues of female body-image. It’s a kaleidoscopic journey in which women sprout ice-cream cone hands and have haloes made of unicorns, where female trolls cling to the legs of a woman and flesh turns to fish scales. Ultimately, the images are both disturbing and strangely poignant, forming a jagged path to beauty and self-knowledge.
GABRIEL SHAFFER
Gabriel Shaffer lives and works in Asheville, NC. The son of renowned folk/visionary artist Cher Shaffer, Gabriel was raised within the self-taught medium and had contact with many folk and outsider artists as a young boy. Always creative, he spent much of his early youth drawing, painting, writing poetry and prose. From the ages of 18-27, he focused heavily on writing hundreds of poems and short stories, while performing in a few bands at such notable events as South By Southwest, and Around The Coyote Festival, Chicago, IL. In June 2002, at the age of 27, in a deep depression, Shaffer had an epiphany while experimenting with painting. He has since focused solely on visual art, exhibiting at the Outsider Art Fair, the Broome Street Gallery / Historic Cedar Tavern (NYC), and Berenberg Gallery (Boston). Additionally, Shaffer has appeared in dozens of magazines, newspapers and blogs such as Art Papers, Architectural Digest, NY Arts Magazine, The Huffington Post, An Nahar, and Juxtapoz. In 2009 Gabriel was voted Western North Carolinas number one visual artist for the Best of WNC awards in the Mountain Xpress newspaper.