On appeal: Judges rule against woman who destroyed Asheville artist's work

A panel of North Carolina appellate court judges Jan. 4 denied the appeal of a convicted Asheville woman who destroyed a now-deceased artist's work during a 2019 event.

A Buncombe County district judge in October 2019, and then a jury in December 2019 found Zena Marie Redmond guilty of injury to personal property in excess of $200.

The charges stemmed from a Jan. 12, 2019, incident in which Redmond hurled a balloon filled with black paint at one of Jonas Gerard's paintings.

Gerard — who died in September 2020 at age 79 — had just finished the painting as part of a performance at the Jonas Gerard Fine Art gallery in Asheville, according to the appeal ruling.

Employees at the gallery suspected there might be "protesters" at the gallery on Jan. 12, since they discovered "blackish tar substance" and "busted balloons" in the space that morning.

After Gerard completed a painting during a performance that day, someone in the crowd screamed and at least one balloon was thrown at the painting he had just finished, splattering it with a black substance.

Redmond was seen fleeing the building.

Law enforcement pursued her, found a black mark on Redmond's hand, black paint on her and a black-paint-filled balloon in her purse, according to the ruling.

After this evidence was presented in Redmond's trial, she was sentenced to 30 days in the custody of the county sheriff.

That sentence was then suspended, and Redmond, instead, was placed on 18 months of supervised probation and ordered to pay $4,425 in restitution for the damaged painting.

The painting was valued at $8,850, according to testimony during the jury trial, allegedly the base price of all Gerard's paintings of a particular size. The price was called into question by Redmond's attorneys.

Related: Vandals owe Jonas Gerard over $34,000, Buncombe court rules

Redmond entered a detailed appeal on Dec. 18, 2019, trying to move the trial's venue out of Buncombe.

In this early appeal, she and her representation emphasized allegations of sexual abuse leveled at Gerard in 2014 and 2015 via U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints.

Gerard acknowledged social media and legal accusations against him, including a criminal charge of misdemeanor sexual battery, which was filed along with the EEOC complaint, according to court documents.

Public protests that often involved destruction of property followed Gerard during the final years of his life. His art, billboards displaying it and his studio all were vandalized in apparent acts of protest that started around 2015, according to the appeal.

The words "rapist" and "predator" were spray-painted on the door of his Clingman Avenue studio and van at one point, the venue change appeal stated.

These accusations of sexual abuse and the protests were often the subject of media reports, according to the appeal, and therefore may have caused the jury to be biased against Redmond.

So she requested a trial in a court that wouldn't be "prejudiced" against her. The court denied this request and, on the same day, the jury founder her guilty.

The latest appeal was filed in April 2021 and argued the trial court erred because it didn't adequately define who owned the painting and what its actual value was at the moment of the incident.

"The State incorrectly identified Mr. Gerard as the owner of the painting when charging the crime of damage to property," the appeal stated, arguing that the painting was owned by Gerard's company - Jonas Gerard Fine Arts, Inc. (JGFAI) - not the man himself.

The appellate court panel disagreed about the relationship between Gerard and his company as it related to Redmond's argument.

"Even after a painting is catalogued and posted for sale in the gallery, testimony showed that Gerard retained the right to revisit his finished creations and to alter or improve them if he felt they needed 'a little more love,'" the ruling stated. "JGFAI employed Gerard for the purpose of creating paintings and granted him control over new and finished paintings."

Redmond's attorney also argued the value of the painting -- which formed the basis of restitution she was ordered to pay -- was speculative since it hadn't sold yet.

According to the testimony of a gallery employee, the painting was damaged just as someone expressed interest in buying it. That person allegedly asked Gerard how much it cost, and he replied, “$8,850.00,” the gallery’s base price for all paintings of that size.

"The evidence adduced at trial was sufficiently specific to show the market value of the painting prior to damage by Defendant on the date of loss, damage, or destruction, and therefore we will not disturb the trial court’s award," the ruling argued.

Gerard's gallery is still in Asheville's River Arts District. Prints of his work are sold at his website.

Andrew Jones is Buncombe County government and health care reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow or reach him at @arjonesreports on Facebook and Twitter. Email him at arjones@citizentimes.com.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Woman who destroyed now dead Asheville artist's work loses appeal