Turchin Center Hosts Spring Exhibition Celebration

By Lynn Rees-Jones

Posted April 5, 2017 at 4:21 p.m.

BOONE, N.C.—The Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at Appalachian State University invites the community to explore its current exhibitions on Friday, April 7, from 6-10 p.m. As part of the First Friday Downtown Boone Art Crawl, this free event is an opportunity for art lovers to spend time with fellow arts patrons, while viewing exhibitions in seven galleries of the Turchin Center. The opening will also feature refreshments and live music.

The featured new exhibition is “Wayne Trapp: A Life in the Arts.”

The life of nationally acclaimed sculptor and painter, Wayne Trapp, is being honored in the Turchin Center’s Bridge Gallery. Although the High Country community is mourning the recent loss of a great artist and, more importantly, a great man, Trapp’s legacy lives on through the art he created during his lifetime. The exhibition features intimate sculptural forms in bronze and steel, drawings in pencil and ink on paper and oil paintings that deliver to the eye a feast of color and stroke saturated with childlike curiosity and adult confidence. Glass display cases present many tools that he used to create his art, including his worn pipe that was his constant companion while he worked. After traveling from one end of the Bridge Gallery to the other, visitors will see Wayne Trapp, the artist and person, come into focus.

About Wayne Trapp

Trapp made his first sculpture at the age of nine and didn’t stop creating until his death last November. After growing up in Pittsburgh, he studied art in numerous locations including New York, Ohio, Vermont and eventually the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina. Since moving to the High Country in the 1980s, he became a respected and influential artist in the community and both he and his art were a common site on the campus of Appalachian State University. He worked in stone and steel for years, creating lavish—even colossal—outdoor pieces for corporate clients and smaller, more particular pieces for his private clientele. His sculptures were often featured by the Turchin Center and by the Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition, with many of them included in the permanent collection of the Turchin Center. Trapp the painter emerged from stone carving and took what he could not say in bronze and marble and expressed it in oil and ink on canvas and paper. His art is part of corporate and private collections around the world and also appears in museums, universities and public exhibitions.

According to collector and friend, Peter Petschauer, “Wayne Trapp’s profound creativity and exacting expectations made him a significant and influential artist. He would have said that the reason his work mattered was because ‘I kept at it.’ As a result, his work spans creations from secular to religious sculptures and from humble drawings to massive paintings. Some works took a few minutes to create and others took years; few failed their purpose of being his vision.

Mr. Trapp understood the history of art, reworked current methods and media, recognized how he could push modern methods and concepts to their limits, literally ruined his body in pursuit of the perfect interpretation of stone, iron, and steel, pushed himself to new approaches in painting, and offered merciless critiques of others because he demanded nothing less than perfection from himself. ‘How can an artist,’ he said often enough, ‘make a sculpture that is nothing more than a copy of a piece we have seen before. One shouldn’t be an artist if one is not willing to reinterpret the medium with which he, or she, works in a unique way.’”

The “Wayne Trapp: A Life in the Arts” exhibition will be on view in the Bridge Gallery through November 4.

About the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts

The Turchin Center for the Visual Arts, named for university benefactors Robert and Lillian Turchin, fulfills Appalachian State University’s long-held mission of providing a home for world-class visual arts programming. The largest facility of its kind in the region, the center presents exhibition, education and collection programs that support the university’s role as a key educational, cultural and service resource. The center presents multi-dimensional exhibits and programs and is a dynamic presence in the community, creating opportunities for people of all ages and backgrounds to experience the power and excitement of the visual arts.

The Turchin Center is located at 423 West King St., in Boone. Hours are 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., Tues. – Thurs. and Saturday, and Noon – 8 p.m., Friday. The Center is closed Sunday and Monday, and observes all university holidays. Admission is always free, although donations are gratefully accepted. For more information, call 828-262-3017 or visit http://tcva.org.

For additional details about the Turchin Center, becoming a donor, the upcoming exhibitions, to be added to the mailing list or to schedule a tour, please call (828) 262-3017 or visit www.tcva.org. You can also follow the Turchin Center on Facebook and Twitter @TurchinCenter.

About Appalachian State University

As a premier public institution, Appalachian State University prepares students to lead purposeful lives. App State is one of 17 campuses in the University of North Carolina System, with a national reputation for innovative teaching and opening access to a high-quality, affordable education for all. The university enrolls more than 21,000 students, has a low student-to-faculty ratio and offers more than 150 undergraduate and 80 graduate majors at its Boone and Hickory campuses and through App State Online. Learn more at https://www.appstate.edu.