FEB 16 – MAR 20, 2022 RECEPTION: FEB 19, 2-4pm

Artists Talk Sunday March 6, 4:40. Register HERE

440 Gallery is pleased to present "Ghosts of War, a solo exhibition of works on paper by Richard Barnet. This is Barnet’s first solo exhibition at the gallery.

Richard Barnet describes himself as a sculptor first and a draughtsman second. For this exhibition, Barnet has focused his attention on assembling an energetic body of work that describes his state of mind during the past few years. Drawing—in pen, pencil and watercolor—is the means of processing what he’s thinking, and lately he has been preoccupied with thoughts of his own mortality. At 81, Barnet feels an intense motivation to get things done while inspiration and energy is plentiful.

Ghosts of War explores the concept of a metaphorical ricochet, i.e., conflicts that keep returning and cannot be resolved. Whether his conflicts are idealogical, personal or even spiritual, Barnet grapples with the idea that when one least expects it, things come back to haunt you.

In this series of drawings, Barnet merges discordant elements into one thing, defining “either/or” and pushing elements towards “both/and” in the sense that all things can become one. In Child, see the Russian Tanks! Glory to the Red Army, the liberation of Auschwitz, January 25, 1945, the artist renders angels and stars against a barrage of shrapnel flying everywhere. House of the Demon brings together surreal architecture, part gothic cathedral, part bunker, in an even more esoteric landscape made up of blue skies and pock-marked earth. Are those oil slicks? Pools of acid? We’re not sure but it is ominous and deeply contrasts the blitheness of a cloudless blue sky. What ghost is haunting the artist here? Is it the existential crisis of climate change or the battle of civilization through religion?

Richard Barnet lives and works in New York City and has a BA from Antioch College, a MA in sculpture from New York University, and a MFA in sculpture from Lehman College. He is a dedicated art educator and has taught at The Cooper Union, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, The Art Students League of New York, and College of Mount Saint Vincent. He is a member of the National Sculpture Society and the recipient of numerous grants and awards for his work. Since 1969 Barnet has exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. including solo shows at Southhampton College and the William Holman Gallery in NYC.

Project Space: Playful Geometry

Playful Geometry is a group show of paintings, works on paper and mixed media by Susan Greenstein, Janet Pedersen and Amy Weil. The exhibition explores three artists uniquely employing geometry within their process to form a dialog between composition and content. Each artist seeks the beauty within the abstract concept of geometry and creates a distinctive point of view.

Artists Talk Sunday March 6, 4:40. Register HERE

Susan Greenstein begins her watercolors by studying the geometry found in the view she is observing. Identifying positive and negative shapes helps to form the underlying structure of her cityscapes and still lifes. In “Williamstown Porch,” Susan shows us the squares defined within squares in window panes, triangle slivers along the roofline, and rectangles that make up a chair. A bookcase composed of boxlike shapes in “Corner Bookcase” becomes a chance for Susan to paint the geometry of the object all while contrasting the organic forms of plants and other objects. With a nod to Paul Klee, Greenstein skillfully weaves shapes into familiar, yet energetic compositions.

Plein air painter Janet Pedersen is showing a selection from “The 2nd Street Series,” a collection of studio-based oil on paper that she has been working on since 2015. Using Google’s Street View Map, Janet selects images from random 2nd Streets in any town or city in the U.S. that sparks her interest. In Playful Geometry, Janet’s streetscapes are locations from Lubbock, Texas; St. Petersburg, Florida; and Ogden, Utah. Using these real, albeit virtual locations, Janet explores the geometrics of landscape and architecture using the vision and process honed from painting directly on-site. She explores the geometrics of her subjects, pushing boundaries of shape, line and color. Pedersen’s playful landscapes are interpretations of the point where reality and abstraction meet.

For painter Amy Weil, the grid has always been a jumping off point for diving into a painting. She creates grids that have a certain order and structure through patterns, color and line. However it is the impulsive and intuitive side of her that needs to break this order down to establish a more playful geometry within such a rigid format. In this latest series of encaustic paintings, she has abandoned the formal structure of the grid to create floating squares within the rectangle. The dichotomy between the movement and playful quality of the dancing squares and the physicality and weightiness of the paint create a tangible juxtaposition. The squares become like imprints of a narrative that is forever embedded in cement.