New path for new gallery exhibit
“Passages,” the new exhibit at the Chadds Ford Gallery, is a little off the old beaten path of the gallery’s traditional fare. As gallery Director Barbara Moore said, “It’s not buckets, barns and daisies.”
The exhibit depicts various means and ways of travel and motion featuring the works of multiple artists including local painters Karl Kuerner, Jacalyn Beam, Robert Stack and Barbara Tlush. “It’s a different vision. The artists have taken us in a different direction,” Moore added.
Moore specifically pointed to “Yellow Peril,” a piece by Steven White showing an old yellow-orange biplane that Moore said looks as if “you can feel the texture of the plane’s skin.”
She characterized all the work as magnificent. “It’s magnificent how they all captured light.”
In addition to airplanes, other paintings show trucks, a Ferris wheel by Judy Jarvis and a driver’s eye view of a dashboard with hands on the steering by Stack.
One of Kuerner’s pieces, “Four Wheel Drive,” shows tire tracks on a broad expanse of a snow-covered field.
But “Passages” shows more than just physical movement and transportation. Beam and Glenn Blue show the passage of time in their winter scenes.
And Tlush shows the viewer another type of passage, the transition of a person from one state of living into another. “Uh Oh” shows a rabbit crawling out of its warren into a field of poppies ready to go to seed.
The image parallels the artist’s own transition. Tlush said she spent several years working mainly on commissions, but now is back to painting everyday for herself. “My passion is coming through again,” she said.
There’s also one relative newcomer to gallery. Neal Hughes, from New Jersey, only began showing in Chadds Ford during the 2015 miniature show. He began his career as an illustrator and now, as does Beam, paints plein air.
He said he loves being out in nature, watching the interplay of constantly changing light on his subject. “You see the subject over time and everything [smells and sounds] effects you,” Hughes said. His image, “Midnight Angel,” showing a birdbath with a cherub in front of two old cars, was used for the exhibit’s invitation piece.
“Passages” continues at the Chadds Ford Gallery through Feb. 26.
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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