BRATTLEBORO — Mitchell-Giddings Fine Arts, 181-183 Main St., will debut oil paintings on paper by David Brewster, watercolors by David Rohn, and photographs by Gene Parulis as part of a new exhibit that opens Saturday, March 6 at noon.
The live gallery exhibition continues through Sunday, April 11, and all work will be available for viewing and purchase online.
Brewster says his interpretations of urban centers, suburbia, and farmlands “are not as we remember them - not sentimental imitations, but as they are, hybrids of historic architecture and modern amenities of late-stage capitalism.
“My subjects are fast food drive-thrus, big-box shopping plazas, and rotting post-industrial detritus. I represent them with neon hues and broad dynamic paint-rollered strokes evocative of our digital age. I also draw with colored masking tape, which I retain or remove to achieve the sharp edges and piercing reflective lights of plastic, chrome, and glass prevalent in our built environment.”
Most of Rohn's watercolors in the exhibit are still lifes - deceptively simple, created as the artist contemplates common materials and objects that have been shuffled about in his studio or that have landed on a kitchen shelf or windowsill, never pre-arranged.
“I try to find a nice comfortable place to sit and paint whatever's there, letting nature do the work of composing,” Rohn says. Among the artist's new paintings is a 10-foot watercolor from 1980, on view for the first time.
Parulis says he dedicates his photographic eye “primarily to things that uplift the spirit and to the creation of works that, to paraphrase the painter Barbara Hepworth, reveal an affirmation, acceptance and intensification of life.
“Our evolving world of digital imagery has heightened this dynamic approach and put within our grasp exhilarating new means of expression: what I think of color, form, and ideas at the command of ingenious algorithms. We are in closer contact than ever with wonders, and this is what my photography explores and celebrates.”
For more information about the exhibit, visit mitchellgiddingsfinearts.com or call 802-251-8290.