BFA Sculpture Exhibition by Jeb Hedgecock: “The Frame Will Walk: Understanding Inheritance and Transition”

The Frame Will Walk: Understanding Inheritance and Transition, the BFA Exhibition of sculpture by UNC Asheville senior Jeb Hedgecock, opens with a reception from 6-8 p.m. on Friday, March 22, and will remain on view in the RAMP Gallery through April 2. Free and open to everyone.

Hedgecock was UNC Asheville’s Black Mountain College Legacy Intern, working under Mel Chin to help create Wake, the giant animatronic sculpture that was seen by millions in New York City’s Times Square during the summer of 2018.

RAMP Gallery is located adjacent to campus at 821 Riverside Dr., Asheville.

Statement by the artist, Jeb Hedgecock:

Growing from an interest in the Fear-Guilt-Shame Cultural Spectrum, this body of work analyzes Southern-American familial concepts of morality and individuality. It is by uniting opposing motifs and focusing on craftsmanship that the artist seeks to develop works that appear both hand-made and naturally formed.

Originally an effort to separate hereditary values from independent ones, this body of works now seeks to abolish the distinction. When an individual encounters the mysterious forces of transformation, the ingredients which previously defined them are altered. It becomes clear which values someone will unwaveringly clutch, and which ones can be shed. In the midst of a culture which no longer practices an organized rite of passage, this body of work aimed to exercise and represent the values which orient the artist as an individual. Art is an alchemical approach to weaknesses and insecurities. The symbolism is architectural and vaguely American; it contrasts stagnation and age with movement and playfulness.

Integral to this body of work is the notion of inheritance. Particularly, the artist is interested in how one’s background serves as a structure, be it a house-frame or a skeleton, upon which a life can be built. Nurtured views are felt viscerally by the believers–in the bones, if you will. Not all bones are strong, or well-placed. Some are weak, malformed, or burnish adjacent bones. Nonetheless, they may morph across a lifespan. It is a beautiful and motivational fact: that the deepest notions of who we are can be challenged and changed.