Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art Presents
“The Shock of the New:
Craig Rubadoux, Susan Zukowsky and Peter Stephens”
April 8-May 7
Opening Reception is April 8, 6-8 p.m.
The exhibit features new works by Craig Rubadoux, Susan Zukowsky and Peter Stephens.
(Sarasota, FL) Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art gallery presents “The Shock of the New: Craig Rubadoux, Susan Zukowsky and Peter Stephens,” April 8-May 7. The artists’ reception is Friday, April 8, 6-8 p.m. Mark Ormand curated this exhibit of new work. The gallery is at 1288 N. Palm Ave., Sarasota. For more information about this exhibit, call 941-366-2454 or visit www.allyngallup.com.
Craig Rubadoux has been described as a “Sarasota master.” That mastery shines through in every image he creates. The artist’s command of figure and form, composition and gesture is second to none; his appeal transcends technique. Rubadoux’ sensual paintings reveal intensely personal glimpses of his inner life; he frequently speaks of his work as a journal. Animated by his love of the untamed environment, Rubadoux celebrates nature’s wild beauty with the music of line, color, and spatial relationships. His lush imagery reveals the world according to Craig Rubadoux; a beautiful, inviting and highly personal realm. His art is included in many public and private collections, including the Guggenheim Museum, the High Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, and The Ringling. “It takes only a glance to recognize a Rubadoux painting,” says Sheila Moore, the director of Allyn Gallup Contemporary. “His style is inimitable and unmistakable.”
Susan Zukowsky was born into an Air Force family in Montgomery, Alabama, in1949. That family was perpetually on the move. While growing up, she attended many different schools in across the country and recalls that “picture books became a source of solace and fantasy. Art was my constant companion.” Zukowsky received her B.A. in Fine Art from the University of South Florida in 1971. While majoring in printmaking, she assisted the master printers of GRAPHICSTUDIO in the production of work by Rauschenberg, Rosenquist, and Ruscha. During this time, collage became the first step in creating lithographic images in her own work. After graduating, the artist says that collage became the first step of communication in letters of very few words. Zukowsky continues to engage in “writing.” Instead of typing or penning the written word, she appropriates images from our media culture, and combines them with such disparate materials as feathers, mirrors, knitting needles, rubber balls, beads and buttons. Her imagery address a range of topics—war, economics, motherhood, nature, loss and love, to name a few. Zukowsky has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows throughout the United States and he works are included in the collections of, among others, the Miami Public Library Art Collection, the Mayo Clinic Collection, and the Prudential Insurance Company of America Corporate Collection.
Zukowsky has a passion for the printed image. “I was raised on reproductions,” she says. “Printed imagery has an amazing associative power.” The artist’s assemblages plug into that power, combining print iconography and disparate objects. The result is an illusion of depth and a celebration of tactile materiality. But communication is always the point. “I’m like a writer,” she says. “Instead of typing or penning the written word, I create my narrative by appropriating images from our media culture. I speak to such varied topics as war, economics, religion, motherhood, nature, loss and love. My art has always been intuitive and narrative—offering the viewer his or her own interpretation. While personal ‘meanings’ may drive my work, the gift to the viewer is the preservation of emotions.”
Peter Stephens is a painter based in Buffalo, N.Y. He graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and attended the University of Siena in Italy (1978) and Rochester Institute of Technology (1976-78). He has been featured in solo shows at Nina Freudenheim Gallery (Buffalo), TUB Gallery (Miami), Zolla/Lieberman Gallery (Chicago), R. B. Stevenson Gallery (San Diego), Fenimore Art Museum (Cooperstown, N.Y.), Drabinsky & Friedlan Gallery (Toronto), and Bess Cutler Gallery (Los Angeles), among other venues. Stephens’s work is in several museum collections, including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Burchfield-Penney, and the Castellani Art Museum in Western New York, as well as the Brooklyn Museum. Stephens says that, in 2007, he was reading excerpts from the Apollo astronauts’ mission logs. Their relation to alien landscapes gave the artist an epiphany. “I saw that I could transform landscape painting by changing the frame of reference,” he recalls. Stephens quickly devoured books on the history of astronomy, physics, and cosmology, and wrapped his mind around the structure of the material world at microcosmic and macrocosmic scales. He was also inspired by NASA images from the Apollo missions and electronic images from satellites orbiting Mars. “Those Martian topographic images evolved into computer manipulations and generative image transformations in my art,” he says. Stephens’ depictions of concrete locations evolved as well, becoming conceptual spaces of layered matrices and components. “I was building abstract paintings using a system of given elements and parameters determining change,” he says. Stephens’ recent works draw on the range of processes that generate patterns in nature. “The laws of physics generate infinite outcomes,” he says. “We experience only the very tip of a boundless arc of probabilities.”
About Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art
Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art was established in 1991. Since then, the gallery has earned the reputation as the leading place in southwest Florida to view contemporary art. The gallery’s collection includes paintings, sculptures, mixed-media assemblages, works on paper and prints by mid-career artists with well-established exhibition records. The gallery also occasionally showcases works by promising emerging artists. Visit www.allyngallup.com.
