Locks Gallery is pleased to present the first iteration of our new annual holiday program It’s Not the Numbers featuring a rotating selection of works by Ann Agee, Polly Apfelbaum, Donald Baechler, Thomas Chimes, Joy Feasley, Neysa Grassi, Jane Irish, Robert Kulicke, Kurt Lightner, Sarah McEneaney, John Moore, Elizabeth Osborne, Harry Soviak, Rob Wynne, and Robert Rahway Zakanitch. The exhibition will be on view from November 14 through December 23, 2014. There will be a reception for the exhibition on Friday, December 5 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.
The works in this exhibition constitute a diverse variety of mediums and techniques, focusing on the unique visual languages of each artist. The works have been specially selected by the gallery staff to provide a unique mix of artists from the gallery’s rich history, our current group of represented artists, and artists new to the gallery.
The rich history of decorative patterns and design are examined through works like the ornate interiors of Jane Irish and the watercolors of Robert Rahway Zakanitch. A selection of Irish’s 2013 energetic gouaches from Florence, Italy will be on view at the gallery for the first time. Her work was recently added to the permanent collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. Zakanitch, one of the leaders of the contemporary Pattern and Decoration movement, is represented with watercolor works that are reminiscent of the decorative architectural paneling on traditional grand interiors. These works collide different historic motifs, with some reading as if in a world of traditional fables and others with graphic Byzantine approaches.
A spectrum of still lifes are included like the studied realist works of Robert Kulicke and the loose ephemeral watercolors of Elizabeth Osborne. The former’s meditative oil paintings seem to effortlessly arrive from another time and place through the custom frames he built for each work. Osborne’s new 2014 watercolors celebrate her unique approach to moving fluidly between observational representation and abstraction. Osborne will be the focus of a forthcoming 2015 solo exhibition at the Michener Art Museum.