EARTH DREAMS

EARTH DREAMS

EARTH DREAMS

CURATED BY ALYSSA E. FANNING

EAGLE STUDIO

NEW YORK November 5 - November 29, 2015

PEGGY CYPHERS ALEC DARTLEY

ALYSSA E. FANNING MICHAEL LEE PATRICK NEAL GARY PETERSEN CHRISTOPHER SAUNDERS CHRISTOPHER SCHADE MONIKA SOSNOWSKI

SARAH WALKER

ALYSSA WALKER ERIC WOLF DANIEL ZELLER

VINCE CONTARINO

is book is dedicated to Charles Burch eld and Bernie Sanders.

Christopher Schade. Arch 6. Acrylic on paper. 7 x 7 1/2 inches. 2013.

Daniel Zeller. In Direct Consolidation. Ink and acrylic on paper. 13 1/2 x 11 inches. 2010.

Eagle Studio is pleased to present Earth Dreams, a group exhibition featuring work by fourteen contemporary artists who explore space, landscape and ways of see ing. e artists create across a range of media including oil, acrylic, ink, graphite and photography. roughout the works one senses a desire on the part of the artist to decode the world around him or her in its myriad and o en transient forms.

Daniel Zeller, Sarah Walker and Peggy Cyphers present us with a world as witnessed from a great distance – from the perspective of a bird, a plane, or an un known maker. Standing before their work we nd ourselves separated from the material orb and its noisy contents below. eirs is an in nite space, in which time could seemingly extend forever: is this primordial time, or contemporary, as seen by a drone or satellite? In paintings by Alec Dartley, Patrick Neal, Eric Wolf and Christopher Schade, the viewer is once again grounded in a determinable space. ese artists present us with images painted en plein air and grounded in reality. But the artists have chosen earthly subjects that are eeting and momentary. e undulating, repeated waves of Wolf’s quavering ink painting could shi in an instant with a strong gust of wind or the plunk of a thrown rock. e sky changes quickly from day to night in Schade’s Parisian-winter cityscapes. Light alters color, mood and emotion in the artist’s psychologically charged paintings. In Dartley’s and Neal’s paintings the artists decipher complex networks of root systems present around the bases of fallen trees in the woods. e works suggest cycles of growth and decay and life and death, amongst the overlapping roots covered in dirt and microbes. Michael Lee also presents us with works grounded in an illusionistic space, but rather than working from life, the artist creates imagined landscapes that feature visual puns. In Lee’s “Modernist Floor” the artist creates an information-packed composition of pattern against pattern, depicting the outline

of fallen leaves made of rope that lie on a wood-grain oor. Like the trees and roots in Neal’s and Dartley’s paintings, Lee’s line work creates a web of mystery.

By contrast, Christopher Saunders’ paintings present us with images of stillness. Saunders’ works are also composed in spatial accordance with Renaissance illusionism and a xed perspectival system, but while Dartley, Neal and Lee focus on the ground oor, Saunders turns our gaze up and out, towards the beckoning horizon and an expanse of empty sky above. e works are eerily quiet and suggest a calm before the storm; a metaphor for our precarious condition in a world of chance and chaos. Vince Contarino and Gary Petersen further the exploration of chance in their multi-layered abstractions. Gone again is a stabilizing horizon line. Space here reads as in nite; layer a er layer appear, shi ing our retinal focus, and o ering the viewer a chance to move back further and further into space, between layers of time and action. In Monika Sosnowski’s and Alyssa Walker’s work time is of the essence, but here in its relationship to memory and place. Sosnowski and Walker present us with landscapes based on impressions of their childhood. Sosnowski’s collage-like photographic installation presents us with images depicting moments from her childhood in a format of foreground, midground, and background. Walker’s ink paintings are based on fragments of faded black and white photographs found in her childhood home as an adult, which capture moments spent in her backyard as a child. Here time serves to separate the artists from their subject and acts as a lter through which they compose their images. Space and time become barriers and triggers for memory and experience. Collectively the works present in Earth Dreams suggest elemental and timeless questions. What is wo/man’s place in the world? Who will remember us a er we’re gone? If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Vince Contarino. NT/NF/20. Acrylic on canvas. 14 x 11 inches. 2015.

NT/NF/21. Acrylic on canvas. 14 x 11 inches. 2015.

Peggy Cyphers. Float. Acrylic on canvas. 48 x 44 inches. 2013-5. Future Byzantium. Acrylic on canvas. 30 x 16 inches. 2015.

Alec Dartley. Ecstatic Woods. Acrylic, ink on paper. 25 x 20 inches. 2015.

X. Acrylic, ink on paper on board. 18 x 24 inches. 2015.

Alyssa E. Fanning. Gray Echo. Graphite on paper. 10 1/4 x 7 inches. 2015.

Roundel, Melting. Graphite on paper. 9 x 6 inches. 2012-13.

Michael Lee. Modernist Floor. India ink on paper. 22 x 30 inches. 2013.

Modernist Fence. India ink on paper. 30 x 22 inches. 2013.

Patrick Neal. New Lebanon Creek. Acrylic on canvas. 16 x 20 inches. 2013.

New Lebanon Fallen Trees. Acrylic on canvas. 24 x 30 inches. 2015.

Gary Petersen. I See You. Acrylic on canvas. 20 x 16 inches. 2014.

Split Decision. Acrylic, oil on masonite panel. 12 x 9 inches. 2015.

Christopher Saunders. Untitled. Oil on linen. 10 x 8 inches. 2015.

Whitenoise no. 12. Oil on linen. 24 x 28 inches. 2011.

Christopher Schade. Juncture 2 (Paris/Winter/Day). Oil on canvas. 12 x 12. 2013.

Juncture 2 (Paris/Winter/Night). Oil on canvas. 12 x 12 inches. 2013.

Field Guide To Ars Oblivionalis (Part One: Hidden Totems). Installation. 30 x 30 inches. 2015.

Monika Sosnowski. Detail.

Sarah Walker. Space Machine III. Acrylic on paper. 22 x 25 inches. 2015.

Space Machine IV. Acrylic on paper. 22 x 25 inches. 2015.

Alyssa Walker. Swamp Maple. Ink on paper. 16 3/4 x 13 inches. 2015.

e Peach Tree. Ink on paper. 16 x 13 inches. 2015.

Eric Wolf. Observatory Mountain. Ink on paper. 22 x 30 inches. 2012.

Mooselookmeguntic Lake. Ink on paper. 29 x 41 inches. 2015.

Daniel Zeller. Neural Impasse. Ink, acrylic on paper. 16 1/2 x 19 inches. 2014.

Primary Di usion. Ink, acrylic on paper. 13 1/2 x 11 inches. 2008.

Written and designed

by Alyssa E. Fanning 2015

Images courtesy of the artists

Cover Detail. Christopher Schade. Arch 6. 2013.

Alyssa Walker. e Dogwood Tree. Ink on paper. 13 x 16 inches. 2015.