Amsterdam Whitney Gallery September Exhibition

Press Release

In CHIAROSCURO INCARNATIONS, the talented artists collected here focus their joie de vivre, transforming it into energetic paintings that explore the universe while celebrating the beautiful moments within it. This stunning exhibition offers the opportunity to experience the nuances of fine art not merely with the eyes, but the heart. Master of Photomontage S.M. LEWIS has updated the classical concept of chiaroscuro into more than simply a contrast between dark and light in this delightful children’s parable that expresses the blessings and joys of life. His book shines the spotlight on a character and his world, creating a visual metaphor through the artist’s utilization of vibrant, resonating, colors and stark contrasts. Canadian Artist RAY MANTELLA molds and transforms the conventional into the stunning in his inspirational series of mixed media works that express his vision through color, texture, and line. Utilizing color to depict emotions, POLLY NORMAN transcends the limits of physicality and reality in her paintings, generating contrasting illusions of translucence, opacity, and immateriality, while simultaneously evoking the beauty of nature.

Scintillating contrasts, ebullient chromatic palettes, and smooth, sonorous lines all play a part in the diverse and bold works of the three artists featured in APOTHEOSIS OF ARTcetera. These are artists whose paintings all have the strength and passion within to alter the viewer’s perceptions and sensations. Comprehending the power of the imagination, the works of BILL ADES propel the viewer into existential states of imagination and reflection with his mingling of exciting hues and tones with a diverse array of brushstrokes that scatter across the canvases in his non-objective representations of the world around him. OLGA ARNOW has reinvigorated the modern abstract painting with her penetrating canvases that are created with layers of color and go directly to the heart, conveying power and energy. The stunning, shimmering works of CLARENCE BELTLEYOUN are able to achieve such splendor through the artist’s use of exquisite technique and fantastic colors that document the exact shade that the sun casts on a crowded forest, or gold in the sky as the clouds part over the open sea.

Emerging from a number of diverse, intertwining sources of inspiration, ultimately seeking the mastery of energetic color and communicative effect, the three female, Canadian, artists featured in QUINTESSENTIALLY CANADIAN have sought to depict works of unadulterated sophisticated originality and creative novelty. MARIE-DOMINIQUE BEDARD explores the shapes and forms of everyday objects of our world in a stunning depiction filled with rich, arresting colors, that are diffused in golden light. GABRIELLE DUMONT manipulates the brilliant textures of her canvases by engraving and scraping her images, producing paintings with a rough state and an aged look that stunningly contrasts with the expressions of the portrait subjects as they are incredibly delicate. MARIE RIOUX chooses to paint with a knife; thus allowing her to accurately represent the textures of all the elements which exist in nature and correctly emulates the sporadic nature that exists in the outdoors.