Gatherings

First Friday, July 7 from 5 – 8 PMGatherings, our annual Summer Exhibition, seeks to provide a voyeur’s perspective as we invite you to peer over our shoulders on the studio visits of the last year.

What is our purpose in assembling a large group show for you? It is an opportunity to introduce new work, tease the imagination, and plant the seeds for further collecting and private commissions. Gatherings provides our clients with a chance to revisit gallery artists and see what is new, to determine who is moving in a new direction or exploring a different point of view. And, ultimately, it is an invitation to collaborate with us in shaping the future direction of the Gallery. This robust collection represents a wide range of prices and styles.

Gatherings features a large number of three-dimensional works. Elizabeth MacDonald is known for her monumental installations on the sides of Chicago skyscrapers and the tiled interiors of Zen-like private and commercial spaces where entire rooms become the backdrop for her creations. She has crated up three large-scale outdoor sculptures perfect for the gardens of the mid-Atlantic region as well as a selection of her smaller interior pieces.

Sculptor Bart Walter, known throughout the world for his life-size bronze wildlife sculptures, will exhibit smaller, intimate studies retaining all the power and detail of his larger works.

Bill Moore, a new find from the Washington, DC/Texas arena, captivated us with his bronze sculptures of giant beetles and fragmented fish fossils. Moore also utilizes extraordinary patinas perfectly capturing the iridescent qualities of his subjects.

This spring the Gallery introduced the work of Joe Dickey. So successful was Dickey’s exhibit of wood turned vessels, I decided to track down an artist from the old Massoni-Sommer days when my first Gallery featured both contemporary craft and art. Stephen Gleasner, newly transplanted to Maine, is an artist who transcends the art/craft dilemma. Dickey and Gleasner represent opposite ends of the spectrum — Dickey unabashedly loves the pure inherent qualities of his medium while Gleasner pushes his wooden vessels into another sphere altogether.

Recently, Larry and I were jurors for an exhibit hosted by the Mitchell Gallery at St. John’s College. We were so delighted by a particular series of luminous paintings we immediately decided that once the artist’s identity was revealed, we would ask whoever it was to participate in this summer’s show. The artist we so admired is the highly accomplished Annapolis printmaker/painter Sigrid Trumpy.

Gallery regular Celia Pearson is known for her discerning eye. It is evident in the photographs she makes and in her ability to recognize talent in others. Celia drew our attention to Betsy Stewart’s hauntingly beautiful abstract paintings, which depict the natural world on a molecular level. Stewart, like Elizabeth MacDonald, straddles the border between painting and sculpture. Last year, Stewart created an installation piece composed of thirty-six cubes for the Pretoria Art Museum in South Africa. Her slender five foot totem paintings are often free standing. Even her “River Scrolls” appear to hover off the surface as if refusing to be restrained.

Rounding out this summer’s show will be long awaited paintings by Susan Tessem, a Gallery regular for fifteen years; a new series of painting/prints by Massachusetts based master printmaker and artist Catherine Kernan; another series of gouache “River Studies” by Marcy Dunn Ramsey who sold out the last batch of these delectable little morsels in the first ten minutes of her Spring show; prints, pots, handmade books and poems by the incomparable Ebby Malmgren; innovative landscapes by Heidi Fowler and Karen Hubacher and last, but not least, the elegant visual improvisations of our own Larry Schroth.