Julianna Chioma | Nov 18 – Dec 16

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We are excited to welcome Julianna Chioma to the residency! Throughout the course of her residency Julianna will be working on a series of work entitled Rage Bait, including both abstract and figurative paintings, and if time permits an installation as well as a movement based performance.

 

Rage Bait is a multidisciplinary project exploring the psychological and emotional landscapes of Black womanhood as both symbol and icon. Drawing inspiration from body horror, Nigerian folklore, and the aesthetics of online outrage culture, the work examines how the Black female body is consumed, distorted, and mythologized across media and imagination. Through mixed media paintings, installation, and performance, Rage Bait, aspires to reclaim the spectacle of rage, reframing it as a site of agency, multiplicity, and pleasure.

 

Save the Date for: 

Rage Bait
December 14th, 6-9 PM
a presentation showcasing latest works by Julianna Chioma
with live performances from:
Designer
Nina Gi
+ DJ set by Boys Camp

 

 

Artist Statement:
My work explores the psychological and emotional terrain of Black womanhood—an experience that is often mythologized, feared, and misunderstood. Through painting, textiles, ceramics, and performance, I construct hybrid mythologies where innocence and unease coexist. Drawing from Nigerian folklore, body horror, and the language of cartoons, I create figures that feel both playful and unsettling. Their stitched and layered surfaces become metaphors for visibility, vulnerability, and reclamation. I am interested in how joy and pain can inhabit the same image, how tenderness can emerge from dissonance. At its core, my practice is about autonomy and multiplicity. I seek to create spaces where the Black female body exists beyond the spectacle—where it can rest, transform, and simply exist.

 

A Conversation With Our Art Remains Grantees

As we mark the one-year anniversary of Helene, we are reminded not just of the storm’s devastating impact, but of the resilience of our arts community and the collective effort that helped it recover. In October of 2024, in response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, Lamplight AVL launched the Recover, Remain, & Thrive program to support artists and organizations in our community.

Phase 2 of this effort included a community-supported fundraiser, through which we collectively raised $115,000 to offer recovery grants to local arts organizations deeply impacted by the storm. After an extensive application and review process, 9 area organizations were awarded grants.

Instead of traditional grant reporting, we did something different. This past July, we hosted a conversation at Drop of Sun Studios with grantees to hear directly from them—about how the storm affected their work, how your support helped them recover, and where they are today.

 

Today, so close to the 1 year anniversary of the storm, we’re honored to share a video from that conversation with you.

Helene taught us the power of showing up for one another in impossible times. As you remember the storm, remember what you supported in the aftermath, how our community came together to buoy one another up, and the resilience and care we witnessed in our entire region. Your support of our recovery initiative has deeply impacted the work of the grantees in this video and the artists they support, and we and they are so grateful!

 

With deep gratitude,

—The Lamplight AVL Team

Open House: Ephemera House | November 15th 7-10 PM

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Artists Meg Mulhearn and David Lynch have envisioned a project where they bring the coast to the mountains. Many things today are experienced through a screen or grid, whether by social media or video, and they will use the idea of a grid or frame as a component in their work at Lamplight.

 

“Our recent experiments with printing, painting, projection, and sound have inspired an imagined realm with both terrestrial and oceanic elements. As the mountains speak of materialism, solidity, and proximity to the heavens themselves, the ocean and wetlands evoke a different type of depth and the power of oceanic circulation which regulates life on earth. Our hope is that the experience will facilitate deep reflection.”

 

Join us this Weekend:
Open House: Ephemera House
with Meg Mulhearn & David Lynch
Saturday, Nov 15th
7-10 PM

 

artist statement:
All creations are ephemeral and reflect the natural life cycle of bloom, decay, transformation, and absorption into new works of art. We are interdisciplinary artists and musicians, and our collection across forms, called Ephemera House, is a very human and joyously un-optimized attempt to acknowledge the past, present, and future of our creative lives in a series of moments.

Help Artists and Asheville Thrive Together

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SUPPORT OUR CAMPAIGN

This winter, we’re raising $120,000 to support both our ongoing work and our exciting expansion at 2 Westwood Place.

At Lamplight AVL, we believe that artists are the heart of our town. At our home in West Asheville, our residency programs give artists the space, time, and resources they need to create innovative work and share it with our community.

Just down the road, at 2 Westwood Place, we’re building the next chapter of that mission: A new, mixed-use creative space. At the heart of 2 Westwood will be affordable, community-minded artist studios – with several spaces priced below market value to help artists stay and create right here in Asheville. Later next year, a portion of the building will become a community-funded, arts-forward event space. 2 Westwood is being designed as a third space for Asheville’s creative community that will host: open studios, shows, music, workshops, and other arts-centered programming.

This expansion grows directly out of our Recover, Remain & Thrive Program, launched in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Last year, you helped us fund and distribute immediate relief grants to help artists recover and long term sustaining grants to help artists remain in Asheville. Now we‘re raising $120,000 to help artists thrive in our community.

Your contributions will directly support:

• The operation of our new artist studios,

• Development of the community event venue,

• Affordable creative spaces,

• Inclusive, public arts programming,

• And our ongoing residency program.

 

Every contribution helps create a space where artists and the Asheville community can thrive together.

Croctober Fest! 10/24 from 5-9 PM

At long last Croctober Fest is here! Rescheduled from last October,  this event will feature a playful series of silly Croc-inspired art + music from Corpse Dust and Busted Chops.

Each piece celebrates the iconic shoe with humor and charm, guaranteed to spark laughter and smiles. Lighthearted, quirky, and a little absurd—this collection is all about joy, fun, and creative Croc appreciation. We hope to see you on Friday!

 

The Moon Talkers Exhibition | Saturday, 9/20, 1-4PM

Saturday, September 20th, 1-4pm

Join us for an afternoon viewing of photographs taken by Jade Aster throughout the course of their residency!

Our current artist-in-residence, Experimental instant film photographer, Jade Aster, blends art and astronomy under the moniker, The Moon Talkers. Throughout their residency, Jade has been using instant film cameras (Polaroid and Instax) and a telescope to capture lunar and solar details on small pieces of instant film. As the moon cycled through its lunar month, they photographed each phase to show the changes in crater visibility and dark plains of the surface. Now, nearing the end of the residency, they will piece together the individual photographs side by side to create a larger mosaic of the lunar month.

We hope to see you this weekend!

Fundraising Gala at Drop of Sun

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Join us for Lamplight’s second annual FUNDRAISING GALA hosted at Drop of Sun Studios! We want to gather with our community, dress up (sequins encouraged!), have a fun night, share some food and drink, and, of course, raise some money to benefit our Annual Fundraiser.

Your ticket to this event includes:

• Scrumptious hors d’oeuvres

• An open bar with cocktails, beer, and wine

• Karaoke with the best sound system in town

• A photo booth decorated by SWANNATOPIA

• A raffle full of incredible prizes from our sponsors

Don’t hesitate, tickets will go fast! We look forward to good food, good drink, and good tunes, all in the name of the Asheville arts community. We’ll see you there!

 

This event is sponsored by our friends at:

Garden Party  |  Everyday Oil  |  Harvest Records |  Greenhouse  |  Burial Beer  |  Visuals Wine  |  Knook Ceramics | Bagatelle Books  |  Character Study  |  Rowan Coffee  |  Haunt  |  Alexis Dunn Astrology  |  Kevin Rumley  |  Emily Easterly  |  Asheville Yards  |  N&W Cleaning  |  Alexis Dunn Astrology  |  Shared Language  |  Clad  |  Sauna House  |  Blind Tiger  |  AVL Clay  |  Leo’s  |  The Admiral

Martha Skinner | Community Making Sessions

At Lamplight AVL, Martha will be weaving herself into a drawing within a drawing of drawings – a durational performance in collaboration with light, space, and the visitors to the space as a series of participatory performances.

CoCocoon will be created with the participation of the community — and you’re all invited! Twice this month, Martha will open her creative space at Lamplight for collective knotting and weaving. Together, we will turn limp linear material into form and space: creating expressive explorations as varied as each of us. These gestures will become spatial notations that Martha will weave into a larger, inhabitable piece. The final work will grow and transform throughout the residency.

 

Join us for two Community Making Sessions:
THURSDAY, JULY 17 | 6:00-8:00 PM
Ronald Knight and Chris Aluka Berry will play the NAFlute and handpan while we weave and create together.

THURSDAY, JULY 24 | 6:00-8:00  PM
Chris Aluka Berry will play the NAFlute while we weave and create together.

Closing event on July 27th | 6:00-8:00  PM

Linda singing until 7pm

Drum Major Instinct x Katherine Young | June 21 7PM

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Drum Major Instinct x Katherine Young

Presented by Lamplight AVL at Drop of Sun Studios

Lamplight AVL invites you to Drop of Sun Studios for a behind the scenes peak at a recording by Drum Major Instinct and Katherine Young. A limited number of guests will sit quietly in the live room, on the mezzanine, or in the control room to experience this live recording event.

reserve your tickets here

 

banner image by: John Ramspott

Drum Major Instinct is an experimental music duo from Asheville, North Carolina. Jeff Arnal plays (mostly) percussion and Curt Cloninger plays (mostly) modular synthesizer. The Wire describes Jeff’s drumming as a “highly original concept” having “a balletic sense of time and imaginative deployment of colour;” and Byron Coley says Curt’s modular synthesis “moves like blocks of radioactive adobe being shifted around by architects in space suits.” But, of course, nothing is ever that straightforward. The resultant music is about waves of energy, patterns within patterns (within patterns), sounds from the natural world, and running the voodoo down. Their self-titled first release is on Mahakala Music (2022) and their latest 2025 LP (entitled “Almost Nothing”) is on Haunted Apparatus.

Joining them for this live performance is Katherine Young. As a bassoonist and improviser, Katherine Young amplifies her instrument and employs a flexible electronics setup. She performs as a soloist, in ad hoc improvised groups, and with projects such as Beautifulish (duo with Sam Scranton) and Architeuthis Walks on Land (duo with Amy Cimini). Her debut solo album garnered praise in The Wire (“Bassoon colossus”) and Downbeat (“seriously bold leaps for the bassoon”). She has documented her work on numerous recordings, including her quartet Pretty Monsters self-titled debut, a duo recording with Anthony Braxton, and the multi-movement work “Diligence Is to Magic as Progress Is to Flight” (Parlour Tapes+) created with violinist Austin Wulliman of the JACK Quartet. Katherine is based in Atlanta, where she teaches composition, electronic music, and improvisation at Emory University. In 2021, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition. As a scholar, she researches the incorporation of idiosyncratic electronics and improvisation in contemporary notated music.

Nava Lubelski Opening Event

Join us Saturday for Who Are We and Who Have We Been, an opening of works from our May artist in residence, Nava Lubelski, plus a musical performance by TangleDust.

The artist states:

“The project is a large-scale immersive environment constructed of the delicate details associated with traditional folk handcrafts. Using needlework in expressive, chaotic and destructive ways has long been a signature in my work and with this project my approach is to challenge the viewer to find beauty in the breakdown, seeing tangles and snarls as intricate lace, and allowing the seductive and satisfying qualities of embroidery to be used in service of memorializing stains and other random marks. My work is adamantly analog and I see this elevation of folk crafts as being a puzzling over the marginalization of the decorative and the handmade, making space for conceptual work that isn’t simplified or flattened in presentation, and yet, also isn’t tidy and dependent on displays of controlled skill for it’s meaning.”

We look forward to seeing you this weekend!

Saturday, May 31st | 5pm-7pm
821 Haywood Road
+ music at 7PM by TangleDust
(Stephen Barnard and Mike Holstein)

This project was supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.