Now through then end of the month, the Chadds Ford Gallery is featuring the work of Bill Ewing in an exhibit titled “Subjects Matter.”
The gallery has been showing Ewing’s work for years and, according to Gallery Director Barbara Moore, his art has matured over the year.
She chuckled when recalling Ewing bringing in his first pieces for an early Christmas in Miniature show. She said they could be hung because the paint was still wet.
She added, though, that the maturity of his work “grows and grows and grows.”
“I can’t just say it’s better than it was yesterday, although it is, but it’s the variety of the work that he does, the abstracts, the portraits and the still lifes…It shows his relationship with the subjects.”
His work also shows clean, sharp lines, detailed and true to life.
Moore pointed to a silver pitcher in one of the works and said she felt it would show fingerprints just like a real pitcher if she touched it.
Ewing said the ability to bring that level of true-to-life detail is a matter of “dissecting objects with your eye. Take them apart with your eye, then mechanically reproduce them.”
The artist said he’s always been attracted to the work of the 17th century Dutch and Flemish painters and thinks that shows through.
“I was attracted to them when I was young,” he said. “I look back on it now and think it’s been my life’s work to figure out the methods and materials they used. It’s been a bump and go sort of thing, but I’m zeroing in on it.”
As for the change in his work, Ewing said, “Change is my middle name. I change in subtle ways. I don’t do anything the same way for a long period of time. I might get three or four paintings out before I change the color of the ground. Anything for a change. I love to change things. That’s the reason I do these self-portraits. It’s not because I think I’m handsome, but because I have a new concept and have to test it out on something.”
In addition to the still lifes, portraits and nudes, some of his pieces reflect a sense of humor. There’s “The Pickpocket,” that depicts an old west bar with a dance hall girl lifting a cowboy’s wallet. In “The Morning After the Night Before,” there are a variety of mundane items in the still life, but also a set of false teeth floating in a glass.
In addition to art, Ewing has had a lifer-long love of cars and those two loves come together in several of the pieces in the exhibit. There’s “Motorhead,” a portrait with a motor coming from the subjects head. In another still life of a shop scene, there’s a carburetor, some tools and a quart of motor oil. Ewing shows his age in that one since the quart of oil has the name “ESSO” on it.
Demand for Ewing’s collector paintings has continued to increase and two museums, The Brandywine River Museum and the Delaware Art Museum, have included his works in their permanent collections.
The exhibit runs through Nov. 30. Christmas in Miniature begins Wednesday, Dec. 3.
About Rich Schwartzman
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
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