2016 Arts Alive Invitational Show
A Message from the Jurors
Regional Juried Show at the George Waters Gallery
March – April 2015
Prize judges Dan Reidy and Wendy Taylor explained their reasoning for the four award winning pieces with two words: subverted expectations. The art that stood out from many fine pieces were the works that challenged the typical expectations of the viewer.
The winner of the Marc Hample prize for abstraction is a good example. Ron Faris’s photograph dismisses the idea of proof by photographic “evidence.” The judges say we expect the photograph to provide us with a recounting of experience in an objective way. Faris’s photograph reaches for a different kind of fact, i.e., the emotive aspects of experience. The gestures captured echo brush strokes on Chinese scrolls rather than the expected capturing of “photographic” detail. Faris’s work subverts that expectation for documentary rendering of reality.
A similar response evolves from the unexpected use of collage by Elizabeth McMahon for her abstraction built from vibrant, dynamically sophisticated color juxtaposed against immediate, gestural mark making. The viewer’s eye follows the process as lines move and break in a developing and amending flow of line and color.
The sculptural forms of Connie Zehr’s sand, glass and mirror installation that sits in the center of the gallery presents the idea of interconnectedness. Sparkling glass globules, whose origins depend upon sand, rise elegantly out of this earthy material. The artist’s emotional and intellectual connections with her California past are obvious, as the sand she used has traveled with her across the continent, reimagined with newly created glass, one of the Southern Tier’s most iconic products. Reidy says he identifies with that stray single grain of sand sitting alone on the edge of the glass.
The stereoptypes of landscape painting were turned upside down by artist Bob Ievers. The judges acknowledged the long history of landscape painting in Upstate New York, though the expectation is often a depiction of the intense autumn colors or the deep blues and greens of summer. Ievers captured a different kind of beauty: the cold, gray winter of the Finger Lakes area that seemed to celebrate the souls of those who choose to live in this tough and sometimes unforgiving climate. Reflecting on the typical joy a plein aire painter has while rendering the lake and vineyards on a sunny day, the judges say, “In Ievers’ painting, we are guessing he painted from a photograph, however we imagine the artist jumping over the hedgerows with his easel and paints, setting up the scene in the windy, bitter cold. This is far from the romantic notion of the typical landscape painters enjoying sun and balmy breezes as they paint from nature.”
Regional Juried Show at the George Waters Gallery
March – April 2015
Prize judges Dan Reidy and Wendy Taylor explained their reasoning for the four award winning pieces with two words: subverted expectations. The art that stood out from many fine pieces were the works that challenged the typical expectations of the viewer.
The winner of the Marc Hample prize for abstraction is a good example. Ron Faris’s photograph dismisses the idea of proof by photographic “evidence.” The judges say we expect the photograph to provide us with a recounting of experience in an objective way. Faris’s photograph reaches for a different kind of fact, i.e., the emotive aspects of experience. The gestures captured echo brush strokes on Chinese scrolls rather than the expected capturing of “photographic” detail. Faris’s work subverts that expectation for documentary rendering of reality.
A similar response evolves from the unexpected use of collage by Elizabeth McMahon for her abstraction built from vibrant, dynamically sophisticated color juxtaposed against immediate, gestural mark making. The viewer’s eye follows the process as lines move and break in a developing and amending flow of line and color.
The sculptural forms of Connie Zehr’s sand, glass and mirror installation that sits in the center of the gallery presents the idea of interconnectedness. Sparkling glass globules, whose origins depend upon sand, rise elegantly out of this earthy material. The artist’s emotional and intellectual connections with her California past are obvious, as the sand she used has traveled with her across the continent, reimagined with newly created glass, one of the Southern Tier’s most iconic products. Reidy says he identifies with that stray single grain of sand sitting alone on the edge of the glass.
The stereoptypes of landscape painting were turned upside down by artist Bob Ievers. The judges acknowledged the long history of landscape painting in Upstate New York, though the expectation is often a depiction of the intense autumn colors or the deep blues and greens of summer. Ievers captured a different kind of beauty: the cold, gray winter of the Finger Lakes area that seemed to celebrate the souls of those who choose to live in this tough and sometimes unforgiving climate. Reflecting on the typical joy a plein aire painter has while rendering the lake and vineyards on a sunny day, the judges say, “In Ievers’ painting, we are guessing he painted from a photograph, however we imagine the artist jumping over the hedgerows with his easel and paints, setting up the scene in the windy, bitter cold. This is far from the romantic notion of the typical landscape painters enjoying sun and balmy breezes as they paint from nature.”