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Christie Scheele and Tom Christopher Exhibit at Van Brunt Gallery
Hudson Valley paintings and New York City paintings featured from October 13 - November 5.
Many of us experience and value both the vibrancy of New York City and the tranquility of the Hudson Valley striking a balance between these two seemingly incompatible environments. The exhibition of new Hudson Valley landscapes by Christie Scheele and New York City paintings and prints by Tom Christopher opening at Van Brunt Gallery Saturday, October 13 expresses this balance beautifully.
Christie Scheele who lives just outside of Phoenicia, NY was an abstractionist and later a narrative painter before turning to landscape. Both of her earlier approaches to making art carry over into Scheele's current work. One can see the abstract in her elegant simplification of form and color. The narrative is implied. One has the sense that each of her scenes formed the backdrop for past events that continue to resonate in the lingering mood of stillness and pregnant silence.
For this exhibition, Scheele has focused her attention on Hudson River Valley scenes. Gallery goers will recognize a summer's day view south from Boscobel, the Bear Mountain Bridge in fog and the sweeping vista of the Hudson seen from Olana. In Scheele's hands these familiar sights are reinvested with mystery and depth. Here is the beauty and peace that drew us to this valley in the first place.
In contrast, the energy of Tom Christopher's imagery is as up front and in your face as New York City itself. Underlying all his work is electric free flowing line. The brush strokes in Christopher's paintings recall the powerful gestures of the New York School Abstract Expressionists at their best. But in Christopher's case, these gruff yet graceful marks add up to recognizable scenes of city streets teeming with light and life.
Christopher spent a significant amount of time as a courtroom artist and he can depict a figure with an amazing economy of energized form. There is nothing facile or offhand, every application of paint, as freewheeling as it may be, serves a pictorial purpose. The energy of the paint process is the energy of the city going full tilt.
Much of Christopher's work on view at Van Brunt Gallery is in fact serigraph printing and not painting. Given the painstaking process of making serigraphs, it is remarkable how well these works capture his paintings' exuberance.
The exhibition of works by Christie Scheele and Tom Christopher runs from October 13 through November 5. The artists' reception, which is open to the public, is Saturday, October 13 from 6-9pm.
Van Brunt Gallery is located at 460 Main Street in Beacon. Gallery hours are Thursday through Monday 11am - 6pm or by appointment. Further information may be obtained by email at: info@vanbruntgallery.com or by phone at 845-838-2995.
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