Fluid yet impeccably precise, his gestures create arcing lines that shimmer and gleam like gemstones or fiber-optic lights as the viewer moves around the room.  The imagery references the simplicity, gentility, and elemental kindness of Southern culture, ingrained in Lonas since his childhood in the Smoky Mountain foothills of eastern Tennessee.

“The work in this show,” he explains, “is about a continuing connection to nature and family.  It’s about putting down roots, uprooting, and knowing we have a network, even if we can’t see it, that is constantly nourishing not only our bodies, but also our spirits.”

Lonas, who studied art history at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, is featured in significant private, public, and corporate collections, and has been commissioned to create large-scale works for Fortune 500 companies such as Nordstrom department stores.  In the current series, iconic motifs hover in the centers of inky-black picture planes.  Roots branch out like fingers, lightning bolts, or diagrams of the human circulatory system; nests come together out of of leaves, twigs, and tiny flowers; and downy feathers hover on unseen air currents.  This iconography, culled from the plant and animal worlds, nevertheless reminds us of our human bonds:  those who came before us, the comfort of home, and the journey to independence.  Lonas gained inspiration for Undercurrents from the 34th stanza of the I Ching, which likens roots to “a foundation to dance on” and suggests that in order to fully experience our compassion and humanity, we must “go down to the very foundations of life.”  With this as a symbolic backdrop, the artist deploys an astonishing technical prowess to remind us of an essential truth:  Even in the media-saturated din of contemporary life, it is the simple gifts of family and the earth that make us who we are.

CALLAN CONTEMPORARY hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 10 am-5 pm.  For more information, please contact gallery owner Borislava Callan at 504.525.0518 or visit our website at www.callancontemporary.com.

Written by: Richard Speer

—The author of the biography Matt Lamb: The Art of Success (John Wiley & Sons), Speer is contributing critic at ARTNews and Art Ltd. magazines. His essays have appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Huffington Post, Newsweek, Salon, and Opera News. www.richardspeer.com

Opening Reception

Thursday October 6th 2011 – 5-8pm

ASHEVILLE — Kathy Lonas had no idea what the nest she found on her farm would do for her son’s career. But it became the focal point of hundreds of works of art by Mitchell Lonas, a resident artist in Asheville.

Then, last November, the set director of the popular “Twilight” movie series found one of those nest paintings in Gallery Bienvenu in New Orleans.

The gallery called Mitchell Lonas on his birthday, Nov. 18, and told him that the set director of “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn” might want his nest painting for the movie’s set. And that the set director might want to commission him to make another one like it to make a pair.

A few months later, it was confirmed. Even though the 6-feet-by-4-feet paintings of robins’ nests would have to be shipped to the movie set in Canada, the set director “wasn’t interested in anything else.”

The paintings will probably float in front of a large-scale window across from the entryway to the Cullens’ house in the fourth and fifth “Twilight” movies, according to Mitchell, who is ecstatic about the whole string of events.

It all started when Lonas, who predominately painted portraits after graduating from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville with an art degree, pulled out a nest his mother had given him.

In his basement studio, with a shiny piece of aluminum placed on his easel and a light above it, Lonas started carving the image of a nest into the metal.

“I got really emotional, and I knew I was onto something,” he said.

The nests are a tribute to his mother, he said, the kindest person ever in Lonas’ book. “I think a lot of times, energetically I try to put feelings from my mother — my sense of home — in my work,” he said.

Back in 1998, long before any of his nest creations, his mother showed him three or four nests she had found on their property.

Kathy Lonas said one of the nests was made completely out of their two horses’ hair — a red horse and blonde horse — all wound together and “mingled” together into a nest home.

“It’s so exciting to see a little bird carry a limb or branch and build a home,” she said.

She showed them all to him, he loved them, and she told him they were probably from a “wrench.” Her son told her that she was probably combining the word “wren” and the word “finch.” They both laugh about it now.

It turned out to be a swallow’s nest that would change Mitchell Lonas’ artistic career completely.

He had long carried those nests with him, but in that basement he finally discovered how he wanted to share them with others.

Within a few weeks, he had a whole show put together. “I ended up calling the show the ‘Wrench Series,’” he said with a grin.

The initial creation Lonas made on aluminum, which he keeps in his studio, doesn’t show off the glint or starkness of the nests, but now he gets his aluminum pieces powder-coated with an opaque black or white paint covering. Then he uses customized cutting tools to incise designs into the aluminum.

The result? “The light catches different parts, showing off different lights,” Lonas said.

Also, the dark, empty space or “negative” space in the paintings gives one’s eye a place to rest, according to the artist. He noted how a lot of paintings force one’s eye to see everything too obviously.

According to Lonas, gallery owner John Cram phrased the way a nest inspires best of all. “The nest is a precarious thing. It sets into mind the ideas of security,” Cram said. “It’s not about abandonment — it’s about security and home.”

Lonas also carves trees and floating feathers into his metal canvases once in a while. “Nature gives us the most to work with,” he said. “As a mother wants her child to leave, she lets a few feathers out of the nest.”

Lonas is doing what he loves, but he never realized that his passion would generate as much work as it does. “The moment I finish things, they go out,” he said.

Right now, he is working with the retail store Nordstrom, creating seven to 12 paintings for every new store they build.

That also increases his visibility as an artist, he said.

While busy with work, Lonas said he won’t miss the premiere of “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1”later this year.

Article Written by: Adrienne Belz

Link to News Article

During a recent study Mitchell captured the shape of paths created in long grass and wheat fields. As Mitchell observed the array of patterns he noticed how some paths are silimar to those in life, in that they just come to an end, while other paths over lap and become more complex.

Photography by Mitchell Lonas

Then, working from sketches, he uses customized cutting tools to incise the picture planes with iconic imagery, the beveled lines glinting as viewers behold the pieces from different vantages. “You walk in front of them,” he explains, “and the light travels with you. There’s a sparkle, a feeling of movement. It’s almost a fiber-optic effect.”

Lonas, who studied art history at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, was a respected portrait painter before transitioning to his current style. A portraitist’s sense of  focus, line, and beauty continues to inform his new work, which is included in notable  private, public, and corporate collections, among them a series of large-scale  commissions for Nordstrom department stores. An avid hiker and birdwatcher, he is  compelled to portray nature in ways that are both poetic and inventive. “The challenge,” he reflects, “is to create something original using unconventional materials and
methods.”

The artworks’ gestural drama is tempered by a hushed, Zen-like serenity, heightened by an intuitive use of negative space that recalls Asian sumi-e brush painting. Immaculately presented with hidden cleats that make the works appear to float in front of the wall, the incised paintings have a weightless, ethereal quality and a sculptural presence that is contemporary but not cold. In these semi-abstracted celebrations of the natural world, viewers will find a treasure trove of symbolisms and personal narratives, which lend themselves to extended contemplation and interpretations as varied as nature itself.

Gallery Bienvenu hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Please contact Borislava Kharalampiev, Gallery Director, or Cathy Bienvenu, for additional information or visit the gallery website at www.gallerybienvenu.com.