Artist’s Statement | Inside Out

The Inside Out installation showcases a series of thirty-six sepia-toned photographs mostly taken during Gibby’s mid-70s graduate work in photography and printmaking. Decades later, these photographs are being exhibited for the first time. The images are printed on handmade paper made from indigenous plant fibers, grown and harvested on Gibby’s farm in Floyd County, and then processed in her studio. The prints are integrated into compositions that incorporate symbolic botanicals and iconic birds’ nests, then framed in distressed doors and windows and salvaged iron gates and sewer grates. The resulting works are rich in texture, depth and timeless beauty.

The two-story Sarvisberry gallery has been transformed, through skillful and subtle faux painting, to evoke the illusion of a gritty urban courtyard and warehouse, stunningly and surprisingly encountered in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The images are at once classical and surreal, whimsical and realistic. Looking through the salvaged framing, the viewer is unsure: Am I outside looking in? Am I inside looking out? What emerges is a glimpse of the subjects’ most intimate moments exquisitely and evocatively captured. Inside Out explores the changing nature of home and environment – taking us on journey from the safety of a parent’s embrace to an introspective and sometime wild search for place and home.