art
Home Is Where the Art Is “Signs of Life,” the Great Hall B Y M EG B R A ZI LL
artist statement. One wonders if his artwork, in turn, affects the garden’s design. Sandes’ paintings might be described as belonging to the pattern and decoration school, given to imagery of flora and fauna. They evince the influences of other artists who have used such elements. One might see M.C. Escher’s intertwined repetitions in Sandes’ horizontal “Butterfly Effect,” in which butterflies flutter along a black band that twists and disappears at the edges of the panel. This painting and others make use of swaths of color in a way that recalls Escher’s infinite loops. The gallery labels call these “acrylic paintings,” but Sandes more accurately describes them as painted drawings. Up close, pencil lines are “Jack O’Lantern Farm” clearly visby Mary Welsh ible, showing that the paint was applied after the drawing was completed. The pencil has a purpose, too: Its graphite outlines add sharpness to the flora and fauna, as do bolder black lines from a brush or pen. The works are all on gessoed mahogany or birch plywood panels and finished with a coat of acrylic varnish. The frames, painted
“Night of Shooting Stars” by Roger Sandes
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE GREAT HALL
74 ART
SEVEN DAYS
02.15.17-02.22.17
SEVENDAYSVT.COM
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t the Great Hall in Springfield, an exhibition of paintings by Roger Sandes and collages by Mary Welsh, together titled “Signs of Life,” celebrates home and the natural world in distinct yet complementary ways. The Williamsville artists, who are married, use color, pattern and familiar imagery in their work. Those elements help the show connect with viewers in the Great Hall’s cavernous space. Sandes’ 15 colorful acrylicon-panel paintings, most from his “Water Garden” series, reverberate with “October Light” the movement of by Mary Welsh living things. His images, both horizontal (36 by 78 inches) and vertical (the same dimensions, inverted), may showcase blooming lily pads floating on a pond or a swarm of butterflies aloft on an air current. Trout and red skimmers swim. Frogs sun themselves and dragonflies hover. Harmony abounds. Welsh and Sandes’ perennial garden at home provides inspiration. “Some things thrive, some jump the beds and escape to the fields, some things we love just never last, but the garden endures,” Sandes writes in an