Victoria Pinney in her element.
Photo by Rachel Pressley
Asheville artist Victoria Pinney took her first ride in an airplane when she was six years old. She was fascinated by the topography spread out so far below her, so different in its patterning and shapes from what she’d seen when earthbound. It was a seed that, many years later, would blossom into a body of abstract art, a working studio in the River Arts District, and co-ownership of Asheville’s new Gallery Mélange on Biltmore Avenue.
And all this with little formal training in the arts — merely a class in encaustics that she took, on a whim, more than a decade ago.
“Encaustic gave me permission … the courage to push the paint around and not be required to stay within the lines,” Pinney says of her attraction for the labor-intensive art form that requires the use of a blowtorch. “The chemicals incorporated in the wax make the fumes toxic and the process is very messy — at least the way I did it.” But the physicality of encaustic allowed her to explore what she remembered from gazing out that airplane window — shape, texture, and the depth incurred from what Pinney calls her “excavations” of the wax layers, scraping away and then building up again until the work begins to speak for itself.
She has since moved on from hot-wax-based encaustic to oil and cold wax. “From there, I experimented with collage and straight oil paint,” she says, “but texture is still integral to my work, and I still layer and layer, and then excavate.” The combination of mediums also allows her more flexibility with color, which has always been her starting point.
From a “vague idea of where I’d like to go, usually [a theme] with a basis in nature, I rarely end up with my original intention,” she admits. “I follow where the paint leads.”
That exploration of texture — “as important … as color or shape” — reveals subtle patterns, lines, and edges to the contemplative viewer. “I want people to be able to see into my paintings, and so I love transparent paints that, when combined with texture, create that depth.” One of Pinney’s most important influences is the early-20th-century abstract expressionist Helen Frankenthaler, who invented the “soak stain” technique, diluting oil paint to the consistency of watercolor.
As her work has evolved, so has Pinney’s connection to Asheville’s arts community, with the addition of the downtown gallery, along with her continuing active role in the River Arts District Association. She shares exhibition space in Gallery Mélange with fellow painter and RAD entrepreneur Mark Bettis and jewelry designer Jeffrey Burroughs, whose work debuted in New York City to considerable acclaim before Burroughs relocated south.
“I’m excited that our gallery is along downtown’s Gallery Row, and to be part of the Downtown Art District,” says Pinney. Bringing her work to a broader audience is just another extension of the genre.
“Abstract art,” she says, “is fluid and ever-changing.”
Victoria Pinney, Asheville, Gallery Mélange, 67 Biltmore Ave., downtown (gallerymelange.com) and Victoria Pinney Art at The Wedge, 129 Roberts St. 2nd Floor, victoriapinney.com