"Remembering a Dream", watercolor by Barbara Fox
at
Oxford Gallery, 267 Oxford Street
Rochester, NY 14607
My readers may understand that I write about art - not as an art critic but as an interested person who grew up with art and artists at home in New York. I have been writing about the visual arts for over forty years, and I want to continue on this path. I like to communicate about what I see and how I see it. I really value the human connections and looking at art for me is a great way to get to know other folks and how they view their world!
"The Stuff of Dreams" is the theme of a new exhibition open now at the Oxford Gallery in Rochester, N.Y.
I stopped in to speak with Jim Hall the long-time owner and Director of the gallery and we spent some time looking at a few of the stand-outs in this show. One work in the entry caught my attention by Barbara Fox, of a lady with an origami bird in her hand while other silhouettes of birds flock around the background. Such a life-like quality in this painting on paper!
I should say right away, that I was pleased to be invited to be part of this group show, and I found the theme to be very engaging! Did I try to make my art based on one of my dreams? No, but I did make an artwork that has a dream-like quality. And what is that quality? Something that maybe words can't quite express! In many cases this exhibition presents artworks which are unusual for the way they deviate from the norms. My art seen below is made from a mathematical set of functions...
"an Enigma" print on paper by Alan Singer
Sometimes the artist just wants to have fun with a theme show. "Pipe Dream" by Bill Keyser says it all. His piece is a kind of reductive sculpture that grasps at a simple statement or a poetic visual that can make one smile.
Pipe Dream by William Keyser
Having an actual object become a character on a stage is what is happening here. This is what I mean by deviate from the norms... Or maybe, it is the unusual approach from above that makes the painting by Jim Mott seem like the clouds are parting on a dream-like land down below!
"Ariel Dream" , oil on canvas by Jim Mott
A Theme - "The Stuff of Dreams", does this concept make you happy? Here, is the success you always dreamed about! If I think about my dreams, it is more like watching a crazy movie, some sort of action picture, and there is more than one scene flashing by that catches my attention.
"In My Dreams", oil on canvas by Paula Crawford
Another thing about dreams - that you can't dictate what happens in your dreams, though circumstances in your real day-to-day life can shape a dream. I have a recurring dream of trying to drive my car from the back seat! What is that about?? I think about the many times I walked around New York City when I was a teenager, and how that often comes back to me in my dreams...
Now back to the show at Oxford Gallery. Please be sure that you call ahead ( 585 271-5885 ), because on the day I stopped in they were fixing the front steps of the building at 267 Oxford Street, and I almost left before I found out there is a side entrance!
"George's Dream", oil on linen by David Dorsey
So in many ways, painting is a kind of a dream exercise. You often paint on a flat two dimensional surface but you make an attempt at an illusion of three-dimensional space. It is eyesight and insight that you create. And in the process the details can be very revealing - like the hovering figure in the upper left of David Dorsey's large painting in this exhibition.
Then there are also images that bring you closer to reality, even if it is FAR AWAY! Power to the Peaceful is written on the walls of the wrecked images of real people's lives! Go see it for yourself!
See "The Stuff Of Dreams" at Oxford Gallery, Rochester, New York
