Grovewood Gallery Debuts New Exhibition: Stones & Dreams, Shadows & Streams

Stones & Dreams, Shadows & Streams, a solo exhibition of dreamscape and landscape paintings by Hendersonville artist Cynthia Wilson, is now open at Grovewood Gallery in Asheville.

This exhibition will remain on view through Sunday, June 30, 2019.

Wilson says her dream paintings are her most personal and intuitive works to date. After attending the Haden Institute’s summer conference on dreams – an annual opportunity for spiritual seekers and dream workers to gather in Western North Carolina – she became quite interested in the study of dreams and what they represent. “Since I’m not always able to express myself verbally, painting the emotions and symbols of my dreams became a great expressive adventure for me,” says Wilson.

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Wilson has always been an avid hiker and a lover of the outdoors, known for her nature and landscape paintings. “I decided to see if I could apply some of the more interesting aspects of working with dream symbols to my landscape-based paintings. Stones and Dreams, Shadows and Streams is the culmination of this effort. In this show, there are dream paintings that lead into landscape pieces, bringing together the symbols that I love and the shapes and colors that I see around me while I’m hiking or even looking out my windows at these beautiful mountains.”

Wilson has painted with watercolors in the past, but made the switch to working with acrylics several years ago because of the versatility of the medium. She also wanted more texture in her work, something she couldn’t achieve with watercolors alone. With acrylics, she paints on paper or canvas, and often incorporates collage elements, gold leaf, ink, and colored pencils into her work.

Wilson received a BFA in Visual Design from Auburn University, and worked in advertising for fifteen years as an art director, illustrator and graphic designer. After too many career related moves, she decided to pursue her love of painting full-time. Wilson joined a figure drawing group where she learned how to work with watercolors and began exhibiting her paintings locally. After moving to the Northeast, she built credibility as an artist, getting juried into several New York City art shows and becoming a signature member of the New England Watercolor Society and the National Association of Painters in Casein and Acrylic. Her big break came when her work was selected for the National Academy of Design Annual Exhibition. This opened many doors, including opportunities to be involved in traveling exhibitions as well as invitations to have one-person shows.

In 2018, Pardee Cancer Center in Hendersonville purchased three of Wilson’s paintings, which was extremely meaningful to her as a cancer survivor. Her paintings are also a part of the permanent collections at Fairfield University, Georgia Tech, the Housatonic Museum of Art, and Wachovia Bank among others.

Gallery hours are Monday through Saturday from 10:00 am to 5:30 pm, and Sunday from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm. Free parking is available on site.

For more information on Grovewood Gallery, visit www.grovewood.com or call (828) 253-7651.