|
|
|
|
| Glances
and Gazes…. Two Views of the Landscape
|
|
|
|
|
Image: Bethany
Bonner, oil on panel
Don't forget
to visit....
|
|
|
|
|
As
the spring tides approach New England's shoreline, two
artists exhibiting at Hera Gallery present artworks representing
very different responses to landscape, and in particular,
to the coastal landscape.
From
March 16-April 20, Hera Gallery is proud to present
Glimpses, recent paintings
by Connecticut artist Bethany Bonner, and Fear
of Water: The Ocean, new photographs by Rhode
Island artist Tina Tryforos. Tryforos' series was
funded by a grant from the University of Rhode Island's
Artist Sea Grant project. Both artists host an opening reception
on Saturday, March 16, from 5-7 PM.
A
Connecticut native who recently returned to the area after
living most of her adult life in New Jersey and Philadelphia,
Bethany Bonner is a painter
and multi-media artist who holds an MFA from Vermont College,
Montpelier, Vermont, and a BFA from Moore College of Art
and Design, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Bonner has a wide-ranging
exhibition history with recent shows at New London's Hygienic
Art Gallery, the Westerly Library's Hoxie Gallery, the
new London Art Society, and the Westerly Co-op Gallery.
Previously, Bonner has shown at numerous New Jersey galleries
as well as Philadelphia's Muse Gallery, which is well
known as a pioneering exhibition space run by women artists.
In addition to exhibiting her work, Bonner has extensive
experience teaching art. Currently teaching at Tyl Middle
School in Montville, Connecticut, Bonner has also taught
both children and adults at art centers, camps, and colleges
in Connecticut and New Jersey.
Bonner's
current body of work, entitled Glimpses, is a series of
small, horizontal oil paintings depicting abstracted views
of landscapes, particularly horizons which often include
the ocean. Made from memory, Bonner's landscapes portray
the metamorphosis of an ethereal, fleeting moment as it
becomes a concrete, permanent object. Bonner builds her
paintings using numerous layers of oil glazes and compares
this slow process to watching photographic film as it develops.
She
explains that as she works, "each painting becomes
clearer, and emotionally each landscape becomes more permanent.
The paint begins to hold the light in much the same way
that a memory holds the moment, in a slightly viscid fluidity."
The
surface of Bonner's paintings is luminous, with jagged lines
arching through softer, more plastic areas. The horizon
line running through nearly all of her paintings imparts
a sense of depth to areas that would otherwise appear as
undefined colored bands. Small variations in brushstroke
lend individuality to each painting, giving the viewer a
sense that each mark has been considered, and that each
painting serves a particular purpose in relation to its
neighbor. To the viewer, these paintings are fragments that
stand complete.
Bonner's
focused imagery is inspired by the places she inhabits on
a daily basis. She elaborates, "I catch a glance of
light that makes me stop and catch my breath. The inherent
beauty of that minute makes me think I will always remember
the place, the instant, and my connection to it. I look
away for a second, turn back, and it is gone."
Bonner
mines these fleeting glimpses for all they are worth as
she scrutinizes each moment, striving to attain the spirit
of one particular impression. What fascinates Bonner is
this process of taking one "slice of space,"
barely comprehended, and then through remembering and
recording the image, discovering a sense of permanence.
Her latest series expresses the artist's search for an
"ever-evolving expression of permanence and memory."
Click
here for more information on Bethany Bonner.
 While
Bonner's sources for imagery are fleeting impressions, photographer
Tina Tryforos focuses on details in her series, Fear
of Water: The Ocean. Tryforos first collects fragments of
data, and then distills her photographs through a process
of sifting and reorganizing her images. Interested in recording
what she sees as the complexity and mystery of the ocean,
the East Providence artist has traveled to Greece, Cape
Cod, and Rhode Island. To Tryforos, the sea is both a "metaphor
for the unknowable," i.e. the forces of nature beyond
human understanding, and a crucial part of the human environment,
integral to "the economic, social and psychological
life of the communities" she has observed.
Tryforos'
photographs portray this meeting between nature and culture.
As an artist, she is interested in uncovering similarities
between natural processes and the creative process. She
explains, "The powerful motion of the salt water continuously
re-sculpts the geography of the beach. Image making is about
looking closely and making others see as well."
By
using the simplest photographic processes and materials
such as plastic cameras or pinhole technology, Tryforos
has uncovered a way to produce pictorial effects and spaces
unattainable by more technologically sophisticated means.
She elaborates, " the picture's condensed and intensified
depth of field and exploding diffusion of light combine
to produce visually complicated, atmospheric images."
Tryforos
holds a MFA from the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester,
New York, and a BA in Art from Union College, Schenectady,
New York. She has exhibited internationally, with shows
at in Italy and England. Nationally, she has exhibited at
Union College, Schenectady, New York; the Visual Studies
Workshop, Rochester, New York; Texas Woman's University,
Denton, Texas; University of Rochester, Rochester, New York;
Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center, Buffalo, New York, and
the New Works Gallery, University of Illinois at Chicago,
among other venues. Locally she has shown her work at The
Newport Art Museum and Kingston's Helme House. Tryforos
currently teaches at Roger Williams University, and has
taught at schools such as Union College, the Visual Studies
Workshop, Providence Country Day School, and Kansas City
Art Institute.
|
|
|
|
