In Form, Function and Feminine Force
Main Gallery, The ArtsCenter Carrboro
400 Roberson Street, Carrboro, NC
August 15th thru September 22, 2025
Artists Opening Receptions:
- Friday, August 15th , 6:00pm-9:00pm
- 2nd Friday Event, September 12th, 6:00pm-9:00pm
6 Women – 6 Expressions
In Form, Function, and Feminine Force
This exhibition brings together six women artists working across clay, mosaic, jewelry, painting and fiber/mixed media—disciplines rooted in tradition yet alive with innovation. Though each artist speaks through a different medium, they share a commitment to process, material, and meaning. In their hands, matter becomes metaphor, surface becomes story, and structure becomes spirit.
From forged metal and precious stones to layered pigment, textured clay, and reclaimed fragments, their works challenge the boundaries between craft and fine art. These are not simply objects of function or beauty; they are embodiments of memory, identity, resilience, and transformation. Through form and intention, the artists shape, adorn, disrupt, and honor the world around them.
6 Women – 6 Expressions is a vivid, tactile conversation—an exploration of the power of feminine force through material practice. It invites viewers to witness how the personal becomes universal, how utility becomes art, and how six distinct voices can rise together in harmony, strength, and purpose.
Artists:
- Alina Cochran- Ceramic Sculptor
- Irena Cepulyte-Ceramic Sculptor
- Theresa Arico-Mosaic artist
- Barbara McFadyen-Fine Jeweler
- LaNelle Davis- Mosaic Artist
- Susan Finer-Fiber/Mixed Media Artist
About the Artists:
Artist Statement — Alina Cochran
Ceramic Artist / Pittsboro, NC
Alina Cochran is a Romanian-born ceramic artist based in Pittsboro, North Carolina, who uses clay as a medium for healing, expression, and connection. Her sculptural series, The Ladies – The Perfectly Imperfect Women, celebrates feminine resilience and the beauty found in vulnerability. In this show, her voice is one of transformation—through hand-shaped forms and fire, she shares quiet stories of strength, imperfection, and renewal.
Artist Statement-Irena Cepulyte
Ceramic Artist / Pittsboro, NC
Originally from Lithuania, she lives and creates ceramic art by the quiet beauty of Jordan Lake and its surrounding forest, which inspires her daily. Her art is deeply rooted in her Baltic heritage, which has always honored the natural world. Through clay, she explores organic forms and emotional states of life primarily in female forms. Each piece is a quiet offering — a dialogue between her and life, land and spirit.
Artist Statement-Theresa Arico
Mosaic Artist/Chapel Hill, NC
Theresa’ work explores the intersection of nature and spirit through large-scale mosaic sculptures and murals. Drawing inspiration from the natural world and spiritual iconography, her work is created to evoke joy and wonder. She handcrafts many of her own tiles and uses mirrored outlines to invite movement and light into each piece. Her mosaics shimmer, reflect and respond, becoming part of the space and moment, they are experienced. Through this interplay of material and meaning, she invites viewers into a shared sense of aliveness and reverence.
Artist Statement-LaNelle Davis
Mosaic Artist/Pittsboro, NC
Using picassiette mosaic technique, LaNelle works with broken dishes, pottery and mirror to explore themes of the natural world, people and communities that surround her. Each fragment carries a story of family, labor, resilience and transformation as something once discarded and broken is transformed into something beautiful and whole again.
Artist Statement- Barbara McFadyen
Fine Jeweler/Chapel Hill, NC
For over fifty years, Barbara McFadyen has been dedicated to creating heirloom-quality jewelry using traditional handwrought metalwork and enameling techniques. Working in gold, silver, gemstones, and vitreous enamel, they explore a range of methods—including Keum boo, Basse-taille, and Limoges enameling—driven by a deep interest in the cultural and sentimental language of jewelry. Inspired by daily walks in nature and a lifelong appreciation for Japanese aesthetics, particularly the subtle beauty and impermanence expressed in Ukiyo-e and Shibusa, the artist transforms natural forms and cycles into one-of-a-kind and limited-edition pieces that reflect tranquility and craftsmanship.
Artist Statement-Susan Finer
A native of Long Island, New York, Susan Finer has always been inspired by the textures of sand and sea, forest floors and city streets. She translates her memories into abstract terrains of cloth with paint, thread and scavenged scraps of fabric. Fascinated by the connections and disconnections between natural and human-built environments, Finer creates work where organic untidiness encounters orderly lines and grids. She has shown her work at galleries and museums across the country and is a member-artist at FRANK gallery.