NEW YORK, NY.- Nancy Margolis Gallery announces its summer exhibition, FLOWERING, will open to the public Thursday, June 19 from 6-8pm through August 1, 2014. FLOWERING defined literally is a plant in bloom, metaphorically rich, in full stage of development. The paintings by the eight accomplished artists in this exhibition fit these definitions, and were selected for their engaging personal expression, and styles. Their genre, unalike and varied, runs from realism, abstraction, narration, decoration, patterning, and embellishment. Flowers throughout history have been a universal mode of expression to convey feelings of love, grief, forgiveness, pleasure, joy, and celebration, so it is fascinating to see how each artist in his and her individual voice integrates the FLOWERING theme into their work.
Nancy Blum, inspired by 17th century botanical drawings, is known for her obsessive wonderlands of bold, monumental flowers rendered on paper in ink, colored pencil, graphite and gouache, either as floral clusters or single huge erotic blooms. Blum received a M.F.A.f rom Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI; BA, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. The artist has participated in many solos and group exhibition in the US, and has work in important public and private collections, including The Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID, and The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ.
Lynn Braswell mixes luminous reds, oranges, bright blues, yellows, and carefully crafted subtle contrasting tones to make her floral compositions. The paint, layered onto the canvas with short staccato strokes sets up a gavotte of color and form. From a distance the canvas reveals an array of florals that gradually molt into abstraction as the eye moves closer to the painting. Braswell received her MFA from City College, CUN2, New York; Attended the New York Studio School; BFA, and from Pratt Institute, New York. Braswell divides her time between New York City and Maine, exhibiting in both locations, and placing her work in many of the private collections in these two areas.
Spanning the genres of still life painting, and abstraction, Maya Brym’s paintings intertwine artificial elements to reveal an uneasy beauty in the synthesis. Nature and the way humans interact with it remains the artist’s major source of inspiration. Brym received a MFA in painting from the University of Pennsylvania; BA in Art, Yale University, New Haven, CT. The artist has participated in many group exhibitions in the Metropolitan, New York, and Brooklyn areas.
Traditionally trained, Ryan Cobourn works from observation, memory and intuition. His subject is not about specificity as much as an idea, or thought, executed with dreamy colors, free gestural brushwork ultimately evolves into luscious reconstructed abstract expressionist paintings. Cobourn received his BFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and MFA from Indiana University. He is currently living and working in Brooklyn, New York. He has exhibited in New York, California, Georgia, and Louisiana in group and solo shows. His work has been featured in numerous publications including, Painting Perceptions, Painters-Table, Hyperallergic, Zagat and John Yau’s essay, “Twenty-Five Painters Under Thirty-Five”.
Eloise Corr Danch, born and raised in Chicago, is a versatile freelance artist who now lives and works in New York City. After an early focus on painting and illustration, she has expanded into paper sculpture, creating paper flowers, paper dresses and a various other paper props and sets for a variety of clients and publications. Eloise graduated with a Master of Arts in Illustration from the Fashion Institute of Technology in 2007. Before FIT, she studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and studied fashion illustration in France at the Paris American Academy. Eloise received a BFA in Painting and Drawing from The University of Montana-Missoula.
Meghan Howland’s remarkable figurative paintings have a knock your socks off punch. Coalescing an edgy mood, idiosyncratic theme and composition with beautiful sultry painting the artist’s subjects suggest yearning, loss, and disaster. Relying on shocking contrasts as oppositional foils the artist births fresh pink toned female beauties surrounded by voluptuous pastel flowers, and ominously present, scary black birds. Meghan Howland lives and works in Portland, Maine. She received her BFA from New Hampshire Institute of Art, and exhibiting widely has established herself as an up and coming artist.
Lucy Fradkin explores color, pattern, and diversity in her luminous portraits. Lush rich colors, intricate ornamentation, collage, and pencil blend together characteristically in her work. Contemporary, yet stylistically naive, she takes influence from folk, Indian and Persian miniature painting. Fradkin’s interiors of intimate domestic settings convey and depict stories of daily life. Self taught, Fradkin has shown in galleries in the United States, and abroad including Italy, China, and Japan. She is a 2011 recipient of the prestigious Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Space Grant and the 2009 Pollock-Krasner Grant.
Hiro Sakaguchi’s work is influenced by two diverse cultures, Japan where he grew up, and the US, where he now resides. The paintings depict autobiographical elements, an amalgam from memory and everyday life, creating a story in which emotions can dwell and depart. Hiro Sakaguchi lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. He received his MFA in 1996 from Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and BFA in 1993 from the University of Arts in Philadelphia. He has exhibited paintings in a number of galleries throughout the United States.
