In the upcoming group exhibit Still, Life, and Land, Maxwell Alexander Gallery will combine the talents of artists who create works all using a loose realistic style. All of the artists in the exhibit also make works of various subject matter—figures to still lifes to landscapes, hence the title of the exhibit. Artists participating include Sarah Freeman, Mark Daniel Nelson, Robert Lemler, Felicia Forte, David Shevlino, Eric Pedersen, and Joseph Todorovitch.
Several still lifes will be represented in the show such as Nelson’s painting Flower #4, a colorful bouquet against a black background; Freeman’s work Still Life with Pears with four pears in a simple color combination of grey, green and white; and Forte’s Painter’s Tape (Fern).
“Painter’s Tape (Fern) was first intended as a ‘portrait’ of a treasured object, created out of a desire to discover and share only that which is true and relevant to my own experience,” explains Forte. “The fern was a gift from a beloved sister and is therefore precious to me. I found the moth in my studio one morning after having recently read that moths have no mouths, instead eating their fill as caterpillars to fuel their later search for only love and death! Such romance had to be represented and remembered.”
Life can come in the form of figures such as Pedersen’s portrait titled Zero Nine Two One One Nine Eight Eight (2) that is part of a larger in-progress work featuring multiple portraits of the same size but with different colors. Also there is Shevlino’s work Arms Spread of a diver making her way toward the water.
Depictions of land are seen through Lemler’s painting Cress Street. “The stairs leading down to the beach at Cress Street in Laguna Beach, California, provided a unique perspective of the moment when a surfer enters the water,” says Lemler. “As a design, I have isolated the central subject of the surfer as the singular warm note in a very cool painting, creating a strong center of interest in a soft atmosphere.”
The show will run March 9 to April 2 with a reception on opening night from 7 to 10 p.m.