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March Issue 2008
The Sylvan Gallery in Charleston, SC, Offers Works by Joan Potter & Nancy Bush
The Sylvan Gallery in Charleston, SC, will present the exhibition, Soft Light: Landscape and Still Life, featuring new works by Joan Potter and Nancy Bush. The exhibit will be on view from Mar. 7 - 30, 2008.
The show will be made up of new landscapes and still lifes that are so warm and welcoming there is a sense of coming home to a safe haven. These talented women present paintings documenting the world around them whether that be the landscape of travels or personal collections arranged into a still life.
Joan Potter
Joan Potter's still life paintings are infused with an inner, quiet glow that elegantly lights the objects. Her rich visual language developed over 40 years of painting and is perfected in her portrayal of flowers, produce and special treasures collected during world travel. Her quiet, sensual paintings belie the term still-life, or nature morte (dead nature) as the French say, by providing the viewer with an intimate personal sense of life. Potter will also present some landscape paintings in this show.
A Cambridge, MA, native, Potter received her BFA from the Massachusetts College of Fine Art. Living for a few years in Okinawa, Japan, she worked in graphics and production for a newspaper and taught watercolor painting. Back to the US she enrolled in the Art Students League in New York. In the 1980s Potter moved to Santa Fe and turned an adobe house into home and studio.
For many years now, Potter has enjoyed national recognition for her work, which reminds one of the Dutch painters. The light emanating from dark and a strong focal point in the composition holds one's attention. Allied Artists of America, Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, American Artists Professional League and Grand Central Art Galleries as well as others have recognized her. Potter's work has been featured in publications including Southwest Art Magazine, Dec. 2003.
Nancy Bush
Nancy Bush is a native Texan living in Fredericksburg, TX. Her love of the landscape has taken her on many travels. The challenge of its variety and largeness directs her toward simplification of the scenery. The first and last light of the day fascinates her as do cloudy days.
Bush's greatest influences come from the nineteenth and twentieth century including works by George Inness. Her paintings are peaceful, moody works capturing a moment of the truth and beauty that is the example of nature being God's voice. Bush's relative Ralph Rowntree, an internationally known portrait artist, led her to art.
Bush takes advantage of the opportunities to paint on location, en plein air and knowing we can only pretend to imitate nature, she paints to display a hint of the beauty of that around us. She says she wants "the viewer to feel the physicality and emotional essence of the subject matter of the painting. The simple elegance of trees shadowed in mist or rain gently falling into a meandering stream. Trying to capture the spirit and emotion of what is happening before my eyes is the greatest challenge." Bush's Lowcountry scenes show her appreciation of the magic of this area.
The Sylvan Gallery focuses on 20th and 21st century representational art. Since opening in late 2002, they have shown that diversity is success. The gallery is a member of the Charleston Fine Art Dealers' Association and a co-founder of the Charleston Art Auction.
For further info check our SC Commercial
Gallery listings, call the gallery at 843/722-2172 or visit (www.thesylvangallery.com).
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