Autumn Colors come to my block
When I read the description that Emily Glass wrote about some of her recent paintings now on view at The Geisel Gallery, I was shocked to understand that print editions of the Oxford Junior Dictionary deleted words that relate to nature in favor of words that promote new technology.
Poster announcing paintings by Emily Glass
A strategy or a focus on deleted words for creatures like the newt, or the adder, or for plants like a fern seem hard to imagine - that a dictionary editor would deprive a younger reader of this connection to a living world! In so doing, Emily Glass paints a picture of a drastic change in our relationship with a world of growing things. With this feeling that our attachment to nature is under attack, one could "read" her paintings as a direct appeal for us to stop this from happening!
Emily Glass: Deleted Word "Fern"
oil on canvas
In her compositions she directs our attention to the forest floor, and the passing life that one finds there, the slow movement of a snail, the shapes of decomposing leaves, the cycle of life that we won't find when we glance down at the latest news coming out over our smart phones..
Emily Glass at Geisel Gallery
downtown Rochester, New York
Emily Glass also shows a sense of humor in her Jackson Pollock-like portrait of arugula on a sheet of paper. In this way her paint handling reminds me of many works by Catherine Murphy - where she uses realism to mimic abstraction.
Emily Glass at Geisel Gallery
Her technique has an illustrational focus - to show us details when necessary, and also to inform the viewer of a persistent kind of abstraction in the factual nature of life. In fact, I can remember when I was very little how abstract the entire world looked - and there is an internal thrill in seeing that experience translated in the strokes of paint applied by Emily Glass.
Sainte Victoire by Bruno Chalifour
Rochester has a vibrant arts community and there are a variety of places to go and see what artists are doing today including the hall at the East Avenue Inn ( 384 East Avenue at Alexander Street ). Up now is "Trio" with Howard Koft, Bruno Chalifour, and Paula Santirocco. So, on a cold afternoon in November I went to see these three artists and immediately got drawn into the documentary details of photographs made by Bruno Chalifour. The mountain made famous in paintings by Paul Cezanne is one focus for Bruno Chalifour, and his photographic prints have a clarity and lightness that is remarkable.
Howard Koft at 384 East Avenue
Howard Koft works with digital tools to create images that take reality to a new plane. Buildings can be bent, warped and given new dramatic significance. The digital realm is something I am very familiar with, and the materials that one can use as subjects for art can really manifest themselves in unfamiliar ways - at least as fine art is concerned. For hundreds, maybe thousands of years we have trusted our eye to comprehend our surroundings, but with the new digital tools we can transform almost anything into a new artful experience - call it augmented reality!...
Paula Santirocco - "Its a New Day", acrylic
Paula Santirocco works her abstractions with bright color and a love for her materials. She makes it look easy, but I will bet that there is a lot of trial and error to get her paintings to look this way. All in all the "Trio" is an interesting show - though the space at 384 East Avenue may not have been on your list of must see galleries, still it deserves your attention.
