Of a Transient Nature
Dai Ban, Ginny Fox, Ricardo Mulero, Kingsley Parker, James R. Perry and David Soman
October 6, 2023 through November 26, 2023
Carrie Haddad Gallery is pleased to present Of a Transient Nature featuring paintings by Ginny Fox, Ricardo Mulero, Kingsley Parker, and James R. Perry; drawings by David Soman; and wall sculpture by Dai Ban. The works by each artist explore elements of light and form to contextualize the ephemeral qualities of nature. The exhibit opens October 6 and will remain on view through November 26. All are welcome to join the artists for a reception on Saturday, October 7 from 5-7 p.m.
There is a duality that exists in Ginny Fox’s multi-paneled paintings on clay board. Smoothly painted surfaces layer subtle shades of monochromatic color applied in thin washes. She pushes and pulls the pigment, occasionally adding traces of graphite to build crosshatched patterns. The overall effect produces a glow that softly vibrates. In this selection of recent paintings, Fox uses a rich, autumnal palette of reds, greens, blues and charcoal to mimic the ephemeral and fossilized patterns occurring in nature. These painterly gestures exist on a plane that also registers as sculptural. The crisply defined edges of the deep clay board panels provide a stark boundary for the watery ripples. When two, three or four panels join to create a single unit, the fluid abstraction is sharply segmented to create something that feels architectural and modern. Ginny Fox received her education from New York University and has exhibited with the gallery since 2016.
Dai Ban’s minimalist sculptures continue the conversation of light and form by exploring geometry through monochromatic colors, exactitude and precision. Ban’s choice of modern materials, like an X-Acto knife, foam core, beeswax and Venetian plaster, inform a hard-edge aesthetic. The sculptured forms appear solid and seamless, yet when mounted to the wall five feet from the ground, they appear to effortlessly float like paper. There is a personal language in Dai Ban’s oeuvre that relates not only to the work, but also to the artist. This emotional connection is suggested with titles like "Hope You Don’t See Me" and "I Played By The Book and It Brough Me Here." Dai Ban studied fine art and sculpture in Tokyo at Musashino Art University and has lived in the Berkshires since the early 1990s.
James R. Perry will debut five large paintings on panel that lay bare an artistic process decades in the making. The ethereal abstract compositions, painted in the early '90s, mark the artist’s transition into painting after five years of drawing with pastel. While the medium changed, the artist’s slow, contemplative approach to forging works in subtle layers remained constant. The continual building of transparent oil glazes allowed light and form to be distilled to the surface. The implication of landscape can be seen through veils of paint in “Phantom Limb Phenomena” and “Tree,” perhaps harkening back to the elm trees the artist habitually drew in his youth. Amorphic forms in works like “Sleepwalker” and “Cycle” visualize a more undefined occurrence. While the subject matter suggests mystery, the origins are clear in the artist’s intent to “make visible the unsayable.” Perry received his MFA from the University of Wisconsin and showed most recently at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in Madison, WI. He lives and works in Columbia County and Manhattan.
Ricardo Mulero will present selections from four new series; each displays the natural and man-made worlds through varying levels of abstraction, but are unified in their use of light, geometric composition, and painterly brushwork. The artist employs the traditional Venetian method of painting in each piece, applying thin translucent layers of oil paint to a traditional gesso surface to achieve exquisite depth and luminosity. In the aptly named "Origami" series, Mulero presents flora and fauna through different stages of folding diagrams, distilling the form into geometric compositions. Drifting into a representational realm, the "Back Stairs" series follows this exploration of geometric abstraction using interiors and the emulation of light and shadow as its stage. Local utilitarian structures and agrarian landscapes are introduced in the "Orchard" and "Rivertown and the Valley" series. The artist grew up in Puerto Rico and studied historic preservation at Columbia University and art at Parsons. He also taught interior design at Parsons. He currently resides in Hudson, NY.
There is more than what meets the eye in David Soman’s depictions of stacked wood piles. A woodsman at heart, Soman is fascinated by the materiality of wood and the opportunities it presents when rendered with a skillful use of charcoal. Homing in on vignettes of split logs, Soman asks us to question our relationship to the natural world and our participation in its creation and destruction. Beyond the sheer impressiveness of Soman’s highly detailed compositions, one can see the artist’s silent investigation of light and shadow in his presentation of the vulnerability found in the darkness, the unknown, life and death. Soman lives with his family in Rosendale, NY and is an award-winning children’s book writer and illustrator. He currently teaches at the School of Visual Arts.
Kingsley Parker has studied trees from Mount Spokane to Millerton, Penobscot Bay to Hudson. He observes and documents these living guards in transient stages of life: growth, decay and death. An enduring preoccupation with the vulnerability of the environment has been at the core of his artistic pursuits for decades. He takes great care in how he chooses his subjects to paint, tending toward depicting trees that clearly have weathered many storms. Each is treated as a unique individual; peculiar knots and whorls are tenderly rendered. This exhibit includes dramatically scaled paintings on canvas drop cloths where trees tower over viewers in real time. Also included are smaller works on paper as well as mixed media compositions that more directly confront man’s role in the devastation of land. Parker is proficient in a range of mediums, from woodworking, sculpture and ceramics to letterpress and book binding. He completed his graduate work at Hunter College and lives in Hudson with his family.
