Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art Presents
“Great Escapes”
June 3-July 31
The exhibit features landscapes, seascapes and dreamscapes by gallery artists, including Heidi Edwards, Bruce Marsh, Susan Klein, Bill Nichols, Pablo Soria, and Tom Judd.
(Sarasota, FL) Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art gallery presents “Grand Escapes,” June 3-July 31. The exhibit features landscapes, seascapes and dreamscapes from gallery artists, including Heidi Edwards, Bruce Marsh, Susan Klein, Bill Nichols, Pablo Soria, and Tom Judd. Mark Ormand curated this exhibit. The gallery is at 1288 N. Palm Ave., Sarasota. For more information about this exhibit, call 941-366-2454 or visit www.allyngallup.com.
Sheila Moore, president of Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art, says that these artists, “invite viewers to explore these journeys of the mind. Who knows—perhaps you might find yourself escaping into their vision for an unexpected journey of your own.”
Heidi Edwards’ works reveal a preoccupation with the profusion of color and form within the vastness of Florida’s flat topography. Edwards says that in the 40 years that she’s been painting landscapes, she never tires of the inspiration they provide. “I strive to portray the essence of these places through color and convey a mood that elevates the spirit of my viewers, much the same as these sustain and inspire me,” she says. For more information, visit www.heidiedwards.com.
From his Ruskin studio overlooking Little Manatee River, Bruce Marsh creates both large-scale, photorealistic oil paintings and more loosely rendered watercolor studies. His works hang in museums and corporate collections around the state, including Sarasota’s The Ringling; the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; Museum of Fine Art in St. Petersburg; Tampa Museum of Art; and the Polk Museum of Art in Lakeland. Marsh says that his work is “an extension of my lifelong interest in the processes of perception and representation. The places involve large expanses of space, a clarity of light, and a chaos of surface incident that serves to measure the expanse of the places.” The artist adds that, “I never see the world the same way twice. I’m hoping my art will have the same effect on the viewer. After seeing my work, the world might look a bit different. And, maybe, just a little bit larger.” For more information, visit www.brucemarsh.net.
Susan J. Klein is critically celebrated for her vibrant, acrylic paintings of wild and scenic landscapes from California to Florida, with a special emphasis on the Eden-like, arboreal and riparian vistas of Myakka River State Park. Her Myakka-themed painting, “Clay Gully Creek,” was exhibited at the American Ambassador’s residence in Rome, as part of the United States’ Department of State’s Art-in-Embassies Exhibition Program. Klein also participated in the Grand Canyon’s Celebration of Art in 2011 and 2015 and has been invited to return in 2016. Her works now hang in the permanent collections of 10 national parks. This exhibition will feature recent landscape paintings inspired by Klein’s travels to national parks and her love of the local wilderness. The artist shares that, “Nothing makes me feel so alive, so safe, and so at peace with myself as to be surrounded by and immersed in nature. I try to share my experience of place in my art. Each landscape is special and specific to a given place and time.” For more information visit www.susanjkleinart.com.
Bill Nichols says that as a young painter, “I saw the landscape for its potential as both a conveyor of visual beauty and a messenger of meaningful experience. The difficulty was defining what was special about it for me and then finding a way of orchestrating the visual vocabulary to meet what I was seeing and feeling. It’s been over 40 years that I have been working with the landscape as a subject capable of acting as a mirror to so many experiential qualities. Whether it be the sensual qualities of colors, textures, and patterns or its ability to generate feelings of silence, intimacy, or being part of the world we inhabit, it is a rich theme to work with that continues to hold sway to my interests.” He adds that he gradually came to realize that his profound interest in painting landscapes came from his years as a young boy in upper Wisconsin “and the enduring memories of hiking, fishing and exploring that I did by myself. I hope that some of those experiences of mystery, wonder and time will be shared in my work.” Nichols was honored last year by a retrospective at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio. For more information, visit www.williamnicholsfineart.com.
Pablo Soria was born in San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina, and currently lives and works in Miami. Of his work, writer Carolina González says: “Soria’s enigmatic images offer a window to his soul, allowing the viewer a moment of still meditation. It is not only Soria’s ability to convey, through his images, a deep-rooted connection with the countryside, but also his choice of titles, that make his work an all-encompassing vessel through which one can revisit nostalgia.” Of his own work, Soria states: “Trying to box my work within a certain technique, a particular media or even a definite way of working is the first wrong step in attempting to approach it. The fact is, I’ve taken as many different paths as I believed it necessary to express myself. Painting, object- making, installations and photography are all, in my view, parts of the structure of a large screen. My explorations have been always guided by pure intuition. And in this search, I have never discarded any media.” For more information, visit www.pablosoria.com.
Tom Judd first exhibited his art work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1979, where, at 25, he was included in a survey show entitled, “Contemporary Drawing: Philadelphia,” curated by Ann Percy and Frank Goodyear. The museum purchased a work from that exhibit for their permanent collection. Judd went on to exhibit his work in distinguished commercial galleries, beginning with his first solo exhibit at Eric Makler Gallery in Philadelphia in 1980. In 1984, Judd was given a solo exhibit at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and had work purchased for their permanent collection. In 1990, Judd had a 10-year retrospect at the Philadelphia Art Alliance. He has also participated in many public art projects, including a 70-foot chalk drawing in Salt Lake City in 1997. That same year, he was curator and organizer of an exhibition in New York City with12 invited artists entitled “The Chalk board Chronicles,” which is being made into a documentary film. In 2000, he was commissioned to do an exterior mural for the city of Philadelphia’s Fringe Festival through the mural arts program. In recent years, he has branched out into installation projects, including “The Hermit Project” at Stremmel Gallery in Reno, NV, and has also collaborated with Mexican poet Omar Pimienta to produce “Tijuana Weekend” at Scott White Contemporary in San Diego. The show consisted of a Mexican shack made of found materials imitating the housing found south of the border as well as a series of portraits of Mexican women. For more info, visit www.tomjuddart.com.
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.
