Visions: Real & Imagined
Mark Beard, David Konigsberg, Frank Faulkner, David Dew Bruner, and photography by David Seiler
April 14, 2021 through June 6, 2021

Carrie Haddad Gallery is pleased to present “Visions: Real & Imagined”, a group exhibit featuring work by Mark Beard, David Konigsberg, David Dew Bruner, Frank Faulkner, and David Seiler. Inspired by real life subjects, these innovative artists working in painting, drawing, and photography bend reality to their creative will, accentuating and altering figures and landscapes into an imaginative realm. The exhibit will be on view April 14 – June 6. Openings are suspended due to COVID-19, but the gallery encourages visitors daily 11-5pm (except Tuesdays are by appointment only).
Mark Beard, a contemporary painter working under six artistic personas with timelines ranging from the late 1880’s to the modern day, will have new paintings featured in the front room by none other than his most prolific character, Bruce Sargeant. The imagined English artist is best known for his oil paintings made during the 1930’s and 40’s that celebrate the male form. He is also recognized for the sprawling murals that graced the walls of five Abercrombie & Fitch flagship stores worldwide during the early-mid 2000’s. This exhibit will showcase newly stretched sections from the Milan, Paris, and London murals as well as smaller paintings fresh off the easel from Beard’s NYC studio.
David Konigsberg will exhibit a body of work created in the fall and winter of a most unstable year in which he found personal equilibrium to be in desperately short supply. Yet, as he shifts the perspective to omniscient heights, we find beautiful balance and hopeful resolve in our new vantage point. Two, large paintings consisting of billowy clouds reflect light and shadow; their delicate suspension suggests imminent evolution and change. In another work entitled Clearing, the line between earth and sky is blurred. Voluminous treetops resemble the atmosphere above, reminding us of our current state of flux. In a truly bittersweet painting entitled Dock, 11:15, two figures sit side by side, turquoise waters stretched before them. They are spaced what has become a familiar six feet apart. It leaves us looking ahead towards a day we can stand shoulder to shoulder – literally and figuratively.
David Dew Bruner will present a new series of paintings and drawings inspired by the iconic Greek statue of the winged goddess, Nike. Now prominently displayed at the Louvre in Paris, the riveting marble sculpture from 190 BC has symbolized victory for millennia, and became an uplifting visual reminder to the Stottville, NY artist that the triumph over the corona virus is within reach. Studying a small-scale replica in his home while undoubtedly listening to the news in the background, Bruner captured the figure flying triumphantly forward, which under a modern lens came to “signify the arrival of the vaccine and the restoration of hope”, says the artist. In keeping with his past work that reinterpreted famous paintings like Velazquez’s Infanta Margarita and Morandi’s bottle still lifes, Bruner reworked the winged goddess with his signature enlivened markings in graphite and acrylic in studies ranging 5 inches to 6 feet tall. The final compositions are complemented with antique frames hand selected from the artist’s collection.
Revered artist and designer Frank Faulkner was well known among locals for his handsome restorations of prominent historic proprieties on Hudson’s Warren Street and beyond. It is apparent that the applied arts like classical architecture, Persian rugs, chinoiserie, and Samurai armor greatly influenced his own painting style. His technique employs a rich variety of texture and color evoking the qualities of mosaics and tapestry. According to the artist, the paintings on view experiment with representational imagery. Central designs are positioned in spaces suggestive of landscapes where the settings utilize horizon lines and natural, atmospheric light. Organic compositions take their cues from natural flora endowed with fantasy, which intentionally disorient the viewer. These works present the argument for the imaginary versus the empirical world.
Sepia toned landscape photographs by Albany based artist, David Seiler, will also be view. Operating in the space between photography and painting, these large-scale vistas that capture the majestic cliffs and dramatic hillsides of the Scottish Islands, have a surface built up with mixed materials to suggest an aged patina and feeling of nostalgia.