ARTIST STATEMENT
In a throw away society building lasting items of beauty is an act of resistance. My work furthers this ethos by taking discarded materials, wood scrap, architectural salvage and turning it into items of artistry and permanence.

My media is primarily wood which I paint and shape creating abstract low relief assemblages. While abstract my work is not independent from visual reference or meaning. It is a modern typography, a visual dialogue, a story. I marvel at the artwork of children as their creations reflect a raw emotion, spontaneity, and narrative. I approach making in the same manner, open and connected to the elemental while addressing subjects from the pressing sociopolitical issues of the day to the ordinary and temporal. Inspiration is the unexpected; utilizing found objects and salvaged materials encourages improvisation and demands an immediacy.

My technical approach is radically free wielding by traditional woodworking standards. My desired effect is not symmetry or exacting ornamentation as in inlay but rather a more expressive painterly approach characterized by qualities of color and texture.

2023 Recipient of The Reece Museum Award.

2020-2021 Grant Recipient Regional Artist Project Northwest North Carolina.

2018-2019 Grant Recipient Regional Artist Project Northwest North Carolina.

In the Permanent Collection of The Maria V. Howard Art Center.

For more information please inquire at:
cherylprisco.art@gmail.com

BIO

I am an abstract artist based in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. I was born in Connecticut but have lived most of my adult life in the South, 16 years in Savannah, Georgia, 12 years in Boone, North Carolina. As with all artists, I need to make for my overall wellbeing; it is a necessity, a compulsion. I did not surrender to it completely until relatively recently. Why now? I can not say for certain but I believe it was the experience of almost losing my partner back in 2017. That abrupt reminder of mortality and transience has made me feel an intensity and urgency in everything. My work reflects this intensity visually in color and tactile dimensionality. 

REPRESENTED BY THE HAEN GALLERY
ASHEVILLE
52 Biltmore Avenue, Asheville, NC
BREVARD
210 S. Broad Street, Brevard, NC

UPCOMING EXHIBITION SCHEDULE August - October 2024: Intimate Group Pullen Arts Center, Raleigh, NC

May 2025: Inosculation: Works by Cheryl & Richard Prisco Arts & Culture Alliance, Knoxville, TN

PAST EXHIBITIONS Oct/NovDec 2023: FL3TCH3R Reece Museum, Johnson City, TN Recipient of the Reece Museum Award

July 2023: Tickled Pink Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL

May/June 2023: Recycle 2023 BWAC Gallery, Brooklyn, NY.
Nov/Dec/Jan 2023/24: Wood & Paper
Williamsburg Art Center, Brooklyn, NY

May/June/July 2023: Together & Intertwined
Wilkes Art Gallery, Wilkesboro, NC
July 15 - November 6, 2021: Formation Spartanburg Art Museum, SC

March 7 - October 2, 2021 Solo Show Turchin Center for the Visual Arts, Boone, NC
Nov 21 - Dec 19, 2020: Fragments Arc Gallery, San Francisco, California

Oct/Nov 2020: American Contemporary Craft LHUCA Center for the Arts, Lubbock, TX

Oct 2020: The Schwa Show Emerge Gallery, Greenville, NC

Dec/Jan 2020/19: Fine Contemporary Craft Artspace - Gallery One, Raleigh, NC
2019: SOFA CHICAGO Woman Made Gallery, Navy Pier, Chicago, IL

Sept/Oct 2019: CHROMA The Kavanagh Gallery, Saint Charles, IL

August 2019: 22nd International Open Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL

2019: Artist in Residence Edgewood Cottage, Blowing Rock, NC

May/June/July/Aug/Sept 2019: Cultural Traditions & Outside Visions Annmarie Sculpture & Art Center, Solomons, MD

May/June/July/August 2019: 62nd National Maria V. Howard Arts Center, Rocky Mount, NC Purchase Prize Recipient, Permanent Collection

May 2019: Freedom of Abstraction Site: Brooklyn Gallery, Brooklyn, NY