Local artist Julia Fosson will be featured for the month of July in the F.W. Gallery at Woolworth Walk. Her now works will be featured in a show called “Journeys.” Fosson is an encaustic painter in Asheville. She developed a love for painting with wax and has never looked back to her original roots as an oil painter. She paints with a true passion for the process, experimenting with layered colors for incredibly brilliant backgrounds. Now, after nearly 15 years of working in the medium, Julia says that she enjoys painting because “the wax takes me on a journey, it tells me where I’m going.” For her, wax painting can be fun, exhilarating, and exhausting. It can change moment to moment or just simply happen. She loves painting with wax because it is always totally immediate and in the moment. Most of her work has 15 to 25 layers of wax because she believes in creating a work with a solid foundation. This technique and the way she heats the wax allows her to constantly dig and scrap at it until she has achieved an image that communicates the visual story she wants to tell. For Julia, painting is about the expression of an emotion, a visual conversation. She enjoys sharing and knowing that the viewer will listen visually and share in its emotions and awaken emotions of their own. Julia was traveling in Spain last fall and came upon a huge painting that inspired her for this series, Journeys. She believes life is a journey, some know just where they are going and find paths that keep them on course for their goals, aspirations, dreams and desires, and there are those whose paths find them. In this series, the ladders signify one’s journey and the climb that may or may not happen. Julia collaborated with Mark Schieferstein of Skrap Monkey to fabricate the ladders for her paintings. She hopes you will find them beautiful, challenging, scary, and complex as they help to complete the soul of the paintings. All pieces are handcrafted in Asheville and created from salvaged materials. Every item is individually made and truly one-of-a-kind. Come meet Julia and enjoy the opening reception on Friday, July 6 from 5-7 p.m. Woolworth Walk, 
25 Haywood Street Asheville, NC 28801 (828) 254-9234
Gallery Hours: Mon-Thurs. 11-6 pm., Fri. and Sat. 11-7 pm., Sun. 11-5pm.