Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country | Founded 05-05-05

Artist’s Reception for Raymond Chorneau Saturday

Story by Corinne Saunders

Raymond Chorneau’s paintings will be featured in a show at Blowing Rock Frameworks & Gallery, Ltd., through August 16 with an artist’s reception on Saturday, August 9. Photo by Corinne Saunders “Hemingway once said he learned to write looking at the paintings of Paul Cezanne,” said Raymond Chorneau. “If that’s true, then I learned how to paint reading the poet Richard Brautigan.”

A show featuring Chorneau’s paintings will be held at Blowing Rock Frameworks & Gallery, Ltd., through Saturday, August 16, and all displayed works are for sale.
An artist’s reception will take place Saturday, August 9, from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the gallery. It is free and open to the public and will feature fine wine and food, said gallery owner Tim Miller.

Human figures and many layers of color are trademarks of Chorneau’s style. He paints on canvases or heavy paper that cannot be cut—it must be broken to obtain smaller pieces.

Chorneau works with oil and wax paint. He creates his smaller works with oil wax crayons, but “anything bigger than 12 inches square is done with a brush,” he said. “I add wax as a glazing medium. It allows the greatest absorption of light to allow color saturation.”

His use of wax was inspired by his surfing days when he noticed how the buildup of wax layers makes a three-dimensional surface out of a formerly smooth one.
“The figures are constructed and deconstructed under a surface of layers where they tend to move around a lot. In the end they get caught in the web of being human,” he said.

“There’s a presence contained in the images. It’s not just here in the High Country it’s recognizable; it has been well tested,” Chorneau said, adding that he has made a living as an artist for almost 30 years.

About being an artist, he said, “You get more than you give. The commitment to taking what comes from it separates the amateurs from the professionals. All obstacles bring you back to who you really are. I’ve never come across an obstacle that didn’t give me something and [they have] defined me or redefined me.”

He grew up in Manhattan Beach, Calif., and his father was an artist, although that wasn’t how he made his living, Chorneau said. “We had a lot of artists in the house,” he added.

A particular sunset painting of Monet’s inspired Chorneau to begin painting at age 18 or 19. Chorneau is self-taught, although he learned from plenty of people around him, he said. “What I really am is a poet who has figured out how to make a living as a painter,” Chorneau said.

He left home in the ‘60s to “participate in the now-dead subculture of the period,” he said. After living in Manhattan and Chicago, he came to Blowing Rock 14 years ago.

“I came up here because I was attracted to all the contrasts that are up here. Mountains support a great number of contrasts,” Chorneau said.

Until Summer Music in Blowing Rock ended about five years ago, his paintings were featured on posters advertising the event in which his former wife, jazz singer Beth Chorneau, performed.

Chorneau expressed his view on painting with a quote from The Unknown Craftsman: “Every artist knows that he is engaged in an encounter with infinity, and that work done with heart and hand is ultimately worship of Life Itself.”
For more information, call 828-295-0041 or click to www.brframegallery.com.

Want To Go?

Date: Saturday, August 9
Time: 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Location: Blowing Rock Frameworks & Gallery, Ltd.
Cost: Free