Inner Circles And Impressions: A New Exhibit At Gallery A3 In July
Paula Hite, Left: Daily Reflections, Red-Orange, painted paper collage; Right: Daily Reflections, Yellow-Orange, painted paper collage . Photos: Gallery A3
Source: Gallery A3
Abstract collages composed of painted papers by Paula Hite are displayed with immersive landscape paintings by Evelyn Pye at Gallery A3 July 6-29, with the opening reception on July 6, from 5-7:00 pm.
Gallery A3 is located at 28 Amity Street 1D. Gallery hours are Gallery Hours: Thursday-Sunday 3-8 p.m.. There will be a free online art forum on Thursday July 20 at 7:30 p.m. See the gallery website www.gallerya3.com to register
INNER CIRCLES By Paula Hite
With INNER CIRCLES, Paula Hite presents collaged abstractions that she calls “mandalas for daily reflection.” Like traditional Tibetan mandalas, Hite’s collages feature arrangements of circles nested in squares as well as squares inside circles. Drawing both on concepts of structuring time and space and on the formal structure of the grid, she begins her collages on a gridded backdrop cut from pages of old wall calendars.
Hite enjoys the open-ended process of collaging, which allows her to try multiple combinations of papers, shapes, and compositions before reaching that “aha” moment signaling the piece is complete. “I’m a painter who makes collages,” she explains. Applying acrylic paint to paper with brushes, palette knives, rollers, and scrapers, she creates colorful, richly textured papers that become both palette and brush. Her boxes (and boxes!) of painted papers offer her a range in visual vocabulary, from fields of color to textured expanses. In the collages, a paper with actively gestural brushwork might frame and hold a contrasting paper’s quietly gentle energy, which in turn can calm a more active paper’s intensity.
The collaged mandalas are elaborate vessels for thought and action in which circles and squares contain the painted energy of the papers to create harmonious complexity. Likewise, action and reflection collaborate in her process. Abstract, personal, and expressive, Hite’s pieces invite you inward to their centers.
IMMERSIONS by Evelyn Pye
“When we are in the landscape,” says Evelyn Pye, “we are immersed.” Our eye moves without our conscious notice: in and out, right to left, from foreground and then to far distance.
Her current paintings of the landscape offer that same motion of the eye and experience of immersion, for her and for the viewer. Working in oils on multiple eight-inch-square wood panels, she paints both the close-up details and the broad sweep of trees and leaves reflected in and resting on the water. She works with each panel and then assembles them, moving them around on a six-foot by eight-foot easel arrangement. As our eye moves through the landscape, so too the individual panels that compose the whole painting are moved around, juxtaposed, and re-adjusted.
What was originally one large painting of the pond near her home in autumn also shifted, to become a series of ensembles combining the eight-inch-square panels in pairs, triptychs, quartets, and larger configurations. In each there is some visible shift: toggling from close-up to distant perspectives; a changing palette; a difference in mark making; and always some slight juxtaposition that reminds us that what we perceive is not set once and for all in the landscape’s ever-changing light.
Each of Pye’s paintings is a moment of immersion, of being in the landscape, at the pond, and within the experience of perception.
Art Forum Online
In an Art Forum Online on Thursday, July 20 at 7:30 pm, the artists will speak about their work: process, perspectives, and materials. Hite will focus on her process of building collage-based work, and Pye will address her use of shifting of perspective in the landscape. The audience is invited to join in with thoughts about the creative process and responses to the artists’ work. See the gallery website www.gallerya3.com to register for this online event, which is free and open to the public. This Art in Community outreach program is supported in part by grants from the Amherst Cultural Council, Pelham Cultural Council, and Springfield Cultural Council, all local agencies, which are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
About Gallery A3
Gallery A3 is a contemporary, fine art gallery in downtown Amherst, Massachusetts. Members of our artist-run gallery include painters, sculptors, photographers, printmakers and mixed media artists. You can find us in the Amherst Cinema complex along with Amherst Coffee, GoBerry Yogurt and Osteria Vespa restaurant.
Gallery A3 was founded in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. A group of local artists believed art to be essential to the health and healing of a community and began the gallery as a place to share ideas and artistic support. Since that time, the gallery has been home to over sixty artists and is now celebrating twenty years of monthly shows with openings and forums. All events are free and open to the public.
Gallery A3’s Mission
Gallery A3 strives to enliven and enrich our community by offering exhibits with public openings and open forums. It established and actively participates in the monthly art walks, Amherst Arts Night Plus, and supports regional artists with an annual juried show. It serves its own membership with conversations and programs that bring established professional and newly-emerged artists together, promoting artistic development and encouraging the creation and exhibition of exciting, new contemporary art work.