Gail Flanery: "Transfigure"
May 31 - July 1, 2018 ● Opening Reception: May 31, 6 - 8 PM
440 Gallery presents Transfigure, an exhibition of new work that showcases the distinctive printmaking of Gail Flanery. Since Flanery’s last solo show at the Gallery in 2016, the artist has traveled extensively, including a residency in Findhorn, Scotland. This new work is an outcome of the experience. Gail’s signature imagery continues to draw from nature—much of it is suggestive of landscape, but the geography is rarely specific. This collection of Monotype prints is guided by Flanery’s sensitive and discriminating color palette; her visit to Findhorn introduced a range of reds and blues that she rarely used in her previous work. She has added collage elements, chine collé, and considers more abstract compositional elements in her range. Scale is also a factor in this work, as she pushes the limits of size, both small and large, with this exhibition.
Flanery is a graduate of Cooper Union where she was influenced by the painter and colorist Wolf Kahn. She has worked with a number of master printers and presently works at the shop of Master Printer Kathy Caraccio. Flanery’s work is in dozens of private and corporate collections, and is in the permanent collection of the Jane Vorhees Zimmerli Art Museum. Flanery has exhibited extensively, and press credits include The New York Times.
In the Project Space: "In Full Color" by Acey, Barnet and Pedersen
Janet Pedersen’s use of color and loose brushwork lends an abstract quality to her urban landscapes. Each piece begins as plein air from a location in her Brooklyn neighborhood. Pedersen then continues the painting back in her studio. With these scenes, she works within a square format and focuses on the angles of architecture and patterns of light and shadow, all captured in bright, vivid color.
The watercolors and drawings that sculptor Richard Barnet has on display have been created to visualize his current interests in 3D design. Barnet chooses to make these works as a way of visualizing ideas and thoughts that may or may not be later turned into sculpture. That is not to say that these are sketches and of lesser importance; each piece is meant to stand independent of any further use and are full-fledged statements of the artist’s frame of mind. As Barnet says, “I do not start with a full priori plan for any of these drawings. I am making it up as I go along.”
Jo-Ann Acey is showing new gouache and ink paintings that are her personal responses to the color and beat of the city. Says Jo-Ann, “These paintings investigate the patterns and rhythm in the urban environment. I strive for compositions that portray movement and spontaneity, where the emotional reaction becomes more important than the subject matter.”