Now On Display
The Bascom’s major exhibitions highlight the work of the artists who live and work in our region, Bascom instructors and students, Artist Fellows and Residents, as well as world-renowned artists whose work might not otherwise be seen in this region. The Bascom's 3 galleries and the Winkler Sculpture and Nature Trail are host to approximately 10 exhibitions each year, which pair with our Outreach and Education departments to attract 20,000 visitors to The Bascom. Free guided tours are available upon advanced request.
The Bascom's 2023 Annual Theme: Origins
Origins, The Bascom’s annual theme, invites artists and curators to explore questions about the sources of their ideas, materials, and methods of making. Many of our exhibits this year focus on the materials of art – from Winter Resident Artist Kimberly English’s examination of the materiality of textiles in The Ravel & The Rest, to the Moulthrops’ three-generation investigation into the potential of native trees to be turned into beautiful bowls in Into the Wood.
The exhibit, Green Energy Park: Building Art and Community with Renewable Energy, and the Three Potters Symposium, Elements: Form and Fire, both consider the energy necessary to create artistic forms. Curator Kirsten Stingle brings together artists who explore the theme of origins and myth-making in the multi-media exhibit In.Visible. And Kinship Photography Collective presents Listening to the Land: Reimagining the Bartram Trail, offering visual celebrations of the power and majesty of the mountains, and human ties to the land. The theme of origins also gives the Bascom community an opportunity to explore our own sources of inspiration, dreams and growth, highlighted in this year’s exhibit of selections from the permanent collection, the annual juried members show, and in the on-going collective stories project, Our Bascom.
As we engage with the annual theme, our curators and artists invite us to think about origins as a form of story-telling; as John H. Arnold, has said,
…stories lead to other stories, journeys across a thousand miles of ocean lead to journeys across a continent, and the meanings and interpretations of these stories are legion. 'Origins' are simply where we choose to pick up the story, dictating (and dictated by) what kind of story it is we wish to tell.
As the Bascom offers this season of visual arts experiences, we hope audiences will find a moment to engage with the journey of making, the stories we tell as artists and viewers, and ultimately, our own personal stories about the connection between ourselves and the world.
- GALLERY: Bunzl Gallery
- ARTIST(S): Various
- ON DISPLAY: January 21, 2023
- THROUGH: April 29, 2023
- MEDIUM(S): Various
Emergence celebrates the role of teaching and mentoring in artistic development, highlighting works by faculty mentors their students. The 34 pairs of artists presented in this exhibition represent 20 institutions of higher education from the Southeast. Their works represent a wide variety of approaches to subject matter, innovative use of materials, and mastery of traditional mediums being taught and practiced in contemporary studio programs.
- GALLERY: Thompson Gallery
- ARTIST(S): Kimberly English
- ON DISPLAY: January 21, 2023
- THROUGH: April 8, 2023
- MEDIUM(S): Fiber Arts
This year’s Winter Resident Artist, Kimberly English explores the ideas of raveling and unravelling in her newest textile installation made for The Bascom. The Ravel & the Rest is an exhibition of ironic abstraction, juxtaposing gestures towards creation myths and contemporary existential concerns surrounding climate change, globalization, and nuclear war. Textiles serve as a metaphor for human production at large, and this notion of “the ravel”, a loose thread that’s been parsed, speaks to this enigmatic zeitgeist periphery - straddling between states of becoming and the process of unmaking.
- GALLERY: Joel Gallery
- ARTIST(S): Various
- ON DISPLAY: January 7, 2023
- THROUGH: April 15, 2023
- MEDIUM(S): Various
Each year, we select works from our permanent collection coordinating with the annual theme. This year’s theme of origins gives the Bascom community an opportunity to explore our own sources of inspiration, dreams, and growth, that will be highlighted in this exhibition. The works will convey stories of The Bascom – from our founder George Watson Barratt to others whose works are entwined with our history, such as New Orleans painter Will Henry Stevens, and artists featured in our early permanent collection.
- GALLERY: Horst Winkler Sculpture Trail
- ARTIST(S): Various
- ON DISPLAY: April 22, 2022
- THROUGH: April 22, 2023
- MEDIUM(S): Sculpture
2022 marks the second year of annual outdoor sculpture exhibit outside on The Bascom Campus.
Coming Soon
Outdoor Sculpture 2023 - 2024
In April, five new works will be displayed on the Horst Winkler Sculpture Trail, marking the third year of our outdoor sculpture program on The Bascom campus. A sixth work...
See MoreGreen Energy Park: Building Art and Community with Renewable Energy
Featuring the work of artists affiliated with the Jackson County Green Energy Park, in Dillsboro, NC, this exhibit displays metals, pottery, and glass. These works are made...
See MorePhotography Residency Exhibition
Each year The Bascom’s Photography Artist in Residence Program brings in educator-artists who create work for exhibition and offer new insights to our signature...
See MoreInto the Wood: Ed, Philip, and Matt Moulthrop
Into the Wood explores the aesthetic and technical breakthroughs of three generations of artist-woodturners who have created a new language of self-expression through form,...
See MoreMember Challenge: Origins
Bascom member artists explore their own artistic origins in this annual juried exhibition.
See MoreRiver Nest Project
This collaborative piece by LIVLAB artists, Morgan Kennedy and Kevin Kirkpatrick, weaves object making, water-way exploration, and sound, with romantic literary impressions...
See MoreTHE BASCOM WOULD LIKE TO THANK OUR 2023 EXHIBITION SPONSORS
YEAR-ROUND
Claire + Alex Crumbley
Cathy + Bob Fisher
EXHIBIT SPONSORS
For information about sponsorship opportunities, please call: 828.526.4949
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Visit: 323 Franklin Road
Highlands, NC 28741 (Map It)
Call: 828-526-4949 (Main)
828-787-2892 (Ceramics Studio)
Funded in part by a grant from South Arts
in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.