The Summer Show

Robert Goldstrom, Hue Thi Hoffmaster, Louise Laplante, Andrea Moreau, Kahn & Selesnick and Annika Tucksmith

August 3, 2022 through September 25, 2022

Carrie Haddad Gallery is pleased to present “The Summer Show”, a group exhibit celebrating a range of styles and media with an element of playful whimsy. The show will feature figurative painting by Robert Goldstrom and Annika Tucksmith, mixed media collage by Louise Laplante and Andrea Moreau, abstract painting by Hue Thi Hoffmaster, and fantastical photography by Kahn & Selesnick. It will be on view August 3rd – September 25th, with an artist reception on Saturday, August 6th, 5-7pm. All are welcome!
Robert Goldstrom will unveil “Summer Afternoon, Provincetown Bay”, a 60 x 60-inch oil on canvas painting started in the Autumn of 2019. The composition, featuring numerous figures relaxing and playing throughout a beach scene, encapsulates the ephemeral joy of summertime on the Cape. Describing it as a “portrait of a place” rather than a landscape, it’s the product of multiple 10 x 8-inch studies closely examining relationships in light, color, and composition. After countless trials of editing and readjusting the composition, every detail is in balance. “This is a precise painting”, the artists states, “move something, even the dog, and the whole thing is thrown out of whack. Just sit back and contemplate.” In addition to the studies, evidence of Goldstrom’s astute observations is suggested to the viewer with the inclusion of a self-portrait at the center of the painting, where he’s seen reflecting and documenting from a distance under the protection of a shaded pier; a fly on the wall in his own masterpiece. Goldstrom worked as an illustrator for many years, a skill which can be found in his graphic approach to painting. Goldstrom received both the Gold and Silver Metal from the Society of Illustrators. He currently lives in Claverack, NY.

Andrea Moreau gives the quiet postage stamp a life of its own by including it as the reference point for imaginative scenes made with colored pencil on paper. It all started with a trip to Mexico thirty years ago, when she collected a few stamps and incorporated them into her sketchbook. She continues to collect stamps from her travels, or even places she’s never been to, and employs them as the starting point for detailed drawings that expand into abstract motifs, portraits, or invented landscapes. Embellishing the visual souvenir is an “act of escapism” for the artist, allowing her to re-experience her travels or imagine a new place entirely. The received her MFA from Ohio State University and lives and works in Beacon, NY.

Louise Laplante bridges the past and present with mixed media drawings made with figurative charcoal silhouettes juxtaposed on collaged sheets of vintage paper. Finding beauty in forgotten or discarded sheets of ephemera, Laplante uses it as a guide for playful compositions of stenciled birds in mid-flight, drifting feathers, or taxidermized deer heads in rich pastel. A final burst of wistful linework glides over the pastel forms, accentuating her subject’s movement while adding another layer of texture. Louise Laplante is based in East Hampton, NY and has shown with the gallery since 2009.

Landing somewhere between color field and action painting, Hue Thi Hoffmaster loves to play on the canvas, guided by an intuition honed by trial and error. Hoffmaster received his formal training at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Art where he excelled at figurative drawing and favored achromatic palettes. Today, his canvases pop with a bracing marriage of color; denim blues, canary yellows, and plump pinks are contrasted against an earthy field of black in a series of non-objective paintings. His work reflects the phase of life in which he finds himself right now, working in a sunny studio in the early days of parenthood. Hoffmaster paradoxically uses black to create softness and invite light into compositions; jagged edges of color give a sense that one layer has been ripped off to reveal underlayers as experienced in collage. The medium is confidently applied to the surface via flat strips of color or with gestural markings thick with impasto. Hue Thi Hoffmaster was included in the Hudson Mohawk Regional in Albany in 2021 and 2022 and this will be his second exhibit with Carrie Haddad Gallery. He has his studio near his home in Hudson, NY.

Annika Tucksmith’s figurative oil paintings embody a child’s perception of time and space when summer promises to last forever and the backyard is a wilderness ripe for discovery. Tucksmith paints with an ease and comfort that suggests an intimate familiarity with the experience of her subjects. Born and raised in Columbia County, the young artist draws from not-so-distant memories. Her paintings offer both spontaneous snapshots of youthful profiles, as well as composed tableaux of children enveloped in the natural world. Her work is almost spiritual in nature, revealing the innocence and freedom of childhood as she experienced it…or imagined. Even if one did not grow up in this Garden of Eden, we can certainly relate to the fantasy. Annika Tucksmith graduated with honors from Connecticut College and currently teaches art to her students at The Albany Academies.

Best known for crafting inexplicable yet visually invigorating ‘histographies’ that blur the lines between fact and fiction, artist duo Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick turned to the local scenery of the Hudson Valley, (specifically Kahn’s gardens in Ghent, NY) as a stage for their latest project. Kahn & Selesnick channel the beautifully outlandish sensibilities of their series, “Dreams of the Drowning World” to sync with the mystical suits of Tarot. The arc of their work fits right into this centuries old European tradition that is laden with symbolism and very open to interpretation. This exhibit will feature choice favorites including 30” archival prints from the suit of Cups that feature the artist’s own sculpted coupes.