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'Women's Room' debuts Saturday at Gallery at Flat Rock

Equestrians Isabella and Sofia Strahan are featured. Their father is Michael Strahan, the Hall of Fame NFL player and Good Morning America host. [PHOTO BY MONICA STEVENSON]

By Lightning Reports, Published: March 21, 2024

The Gallery at Flat Rock is excited to present Women’s Room, a special show like none other staged thus far in the gallery’s eight-year history.

The idea for the show started when the gallery bathroom was ready for a remodel and gallery owner Suzanne Camarata realized the potential for the room as an auxiliary space to show art on a regular basis.

“Our goal is for our visitor to be pleasantly surprised with a warm, calm, intimate and beautifully lit space,” she said. “We’re excited to have this show to celebrate women and all their presence in the world.”

Women’s Room will open on Saturday, March 23, during the gallery’s regular business hours — 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Visitors that day will be treated to a special program at 2 p.m., when a donation-based entry fee will go directly to support the programs at Safelight in Hendersonville. The show will continue, free and open to the public, until April 30.
Women’s Room will feature the work of 12 to 15 area women artists in a variety of mediums and styles. Exhibiting artist Melanie Hopkins, who is based in East Flat Rock, believes women hide their true selves and thinks, “Whether it’s secrecy during menstruation, putting on makeup or wearing restrictive clothing (we women cover what we think does not appease others) and we do that in the women’s room.”

The artist’s hopes for this show is for women artists to celebrate “what it means to be a woman and some of what we do. We’re going to open up the doors and let you see inside.”
Floral designer Beth Hohensee will have some of her botanicals in the Women’s Room show. Hohensee likens what she does with a deep connection to the Divine Feminine, because of the natural materials that connect her to the earth and nature.

“I feel it's so important that women in the arts be celebrated,” she says. “We come from a long, talented, tenacious line who, despite criticism and lack of exposure, continued to create and pave the way for us.”