Asheville artist Jaime Byrd’s vibrant paintings will soon have a new home as Byrd debuts a 2,000-sqft gallery at 375 Depot St. — the former home of the Magnetic Theatre, which announced its transition to an itinerant company late last year.
Byrd’s oil paintings and mixed-media works are supplemented with augmented reality — a technology she was inspired to infuse into her work through her career as an Emmy-nominated film editor. What started as an experiment purely for fun has become a cornerstone of Byrd’s style. “I had a lot of footage I was playing with and overlaying, then overlaying music and having fun creating these little, tiny movies,” she says.
Starting Saturday, Feb. 3, you can visit the gallery to immerse yourself in Byrd’s multimedia world, and using the Artivive app , play each painting’s corresponding movie.
Mark your calendar for the gallery’s soft opening and leap year celebration on Thursday, Feb. 29 from 4 to 7 p.m.