February, 2006

Journeys through Time and Space

A Three-Person Show of Paintings and Inuit Sculpture

Paintings by Marian Van Soest and Diana Ozolins
Contemporary Inuit sculpture from the collection of Kenard Gardiner
February 2-26, 2006 -- Reception: Friday, February 3, 5:00-8:00 pm

With the approach of February, many Ithacans are either leaving for warmer climates or beginning to fantasize about travel to exotic places. In keeping with this mid-winter urge to spread one's wings, the February show at State of the Art Gallery features an unusual combination of paintings and sculpture evoking the pleasures of real and remembered travel.

Diana Ozolins enjoys traveling with her easel and canvas. Her work has frequently been landscapes from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and the Adirondacks, as well as meditative ruminations from her own backyard here in Ithaca. These paintings from summer 2005 contain some seminal works in that they are in transition to abstraction. The color and form are becoming more important than depicting the reality of the landscape. The dynamic tension between representing a place and letting the paint do something unexpected on the canvas is becoming more resolved and balanced. "I believe the most successful pieces happen when I can enter the zen-like state of interacting with the paint, moving with the impulse of the moment, letting the next stroke follow upon the last -- not predetermined, not thinking about the success of the end-product, not imposing my will on the canvas. It is the state of total engagement in the moment, of flow, that allows the neurons to uncouple from their formed connections to allow something truly unique, new and creative to happen." The paintings in this show are work from the past two years and will be seen here as a body of work for the first time.

Marian Van Soest has also done a lot of traveling, but the works in this show are based on memories of or feelings about places that can no longer be summoned up in detail. "Through playing with design and color, I can sometimes recapture an experience that moved me. The most representational work of this kind is the painting about living over an iron mine in Upper Michigan. The other works are deliberately more abstract. I have been experimenting with abstraction in watercolor, acrylics, and oils since I began painting because it forces me back into my imagination and memory. It remains for me the most difficult kind of painting because I am never sure how well I am communicating with viewers."

The Inuit sculptures, all on loan to the Gallery, were collected over many years by former long-time Ithaca resident Kenard Gardiner. Mr. Gardiner has traveled widely in Canada and Alaska searching out original Inuit works of high quality.

In the course of these journeys, Mr. Gardiner has met and come to know many of the artists whose sculpture he has purchased. Of one young boy (see photo) who had learned the art from his father, he said, "He had the most astonishing skill. I watched as the piece came alive in his hands. In less than an hour he had transformed a lump of stone into something fierce and beautiful. This boy will be one of the great Canadian artists some day."

(See photos of all the sculptures in this show.)
 
large version

This exhibit is funded in part by a grant from the New York
State Council on the Arts Decentralization Program.