BRAD ELLIS | BETWEEN HERE & THERE
April 6 – May 18
CRAIGHEAD GREEN GALLERY
About CRAIGHEAD GREEN GALLERY
The title of my latest exhibition at Craighead Green Gallery is Between Here And There. It is a fitting description for this show as the paintings and drawings that are included were created over the last eight months in the familiar confines of my studio in Dallas, and the evocative landscapes of Kingston, New York, this past October.
These new abstract works of art include large-scale encaustic and collage paintings, works on paper, and some smaller executions. With some of the larger paintings, I focused on dividing the surface into two parts with the upper portion commanding most of the space and the smaller, bottom portion serving as a grounding element. By simplifying the overall composition, I was able to produce layer upon layer of encaustic resulting in heavily textured surface treatments that reveal countless numbers of individual brush strokes.
Some of the larger pieces, manifested as diptychs, intertwine organic imagery with vibrant hues and collaged elements, offering a nod to the blossoming of the Spring season, timely for this exhibition. Meanwhile, the works on paper, conceived amidst the peak of fall in Upstate New York, reflect the palette of the surrounding landscape. Executed with oil pigment sticks, these pieces mark my inaugural exploration into this medium, yielding profoundly gratifying results.
Lastly, I included some small-scale pieces that were created in both Dallas and Kingston, serving as conceptual studies for the larger compositions that follow. They serve as precursors, laying the groundwork for future explorations in painting and drawing.
As I reflect on this body of work, I celebrate a quarter-century of representation by Craighead Green Gallery, marking a milestone in my artistic journey. A special thank you to CGG and everyone who has been with me on this fun ride. Long may we run!
RICH BOWMAN | THE PLACES BETWEEN
April 6 – May 18
Life has a certain way of teaching us what’s important.
I spent the last 3 years deep in that experience. After a major life event I questioned everything, even the act of painting and my career as a painter! What is the meaning of it all and the why? All the things I love to do just didn’t matter anymore. Grief will do that.
Along with a lot self work, help from my shaman, natural anti-depressants, friends and family members I started to climb back out. Getting back to nature was one of the key ingredients, and of course being accompanied by good friends! What’ is nature if you can’t share it, the same with art! Bike trips, float trips, Thursday “lake night” with a special someone, watching sunsets and just soaking in nature’s love got me inspired to get back in the studio and more importantly, my life! Slowly I started to regain my life’s fire! These works reflect and record that process and time.
When I got back in the studio, I started focusing on the process or act of painting more and more. Enjoying all the highs and lows that come with creating art. In many ways they are reflective of how I’m starting to relive my life outside the studio. Being present was my key focus. Trusting that the paintings will reveille themselves and that my past experiences will help me on their journey to completion. The pieces that didn’t make the cut or got scraped are often more important! Their lessons helped in the success of future paintings. As much as the end result is important, is just really became less of a focus. It’s the steps in the journey not the destination that makes life worth all the bother. The “places between” are where the “real living” occurs and that thought process just carried over into the studio.
I encourage you to get up close and intimate with these paintings. Look at the scraps, the washes and textured marks. These small moments combined to make up the larger painting or pictures. That’s where my true love of life and painting resides, in those smaller moments. A good metaphor on how I’m learning to live life.
SHAWN SMITH | SHAPE/SHIFT
April 6 – May 18
My work investigates the slippery intersection between the digital world and reality. Specifically, I am interested in how we experience nature through technology. In this era of Dataism, the human gaze serves as both architect and witness, shaping our world through the lens of screens and pixels. My artistic practice explores the entanglement between the real world and the pixel—the fundamental building block of our digitally constructed reality. With my work, I fuse data and nature to explore the delicate relationship between the analog and the digital.
Since 2005, I have been creating three-dimensional sculptural representations of two-dimensional images of nature I find online. I build my objects pixel by pixel in an overtly laborious process in direct contrast to the speed of the digital world. I explore how pixels come together to form a tapestry that mirrors our interpretation of the world. I am interested in how each pixel plays an important role in the identity of the object, the same way each cell plays a crucial role in the identity of an organism.
With this collision of data and nature, I invite contemplation on how our digitized perception of the world contributes to the construction of our shared visual narrative. As we pixelate reality through screens, we reveal the profound impact of the human gaze on the ever-evolving landscape of our digitally shaped world
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