Upcoming Show Previews

4/1-4/24
Berkeley, CA
Elena Zolotnitsky: ENCHANTED
SHOH Gallery
(510) 504-9988 • www.shohgallery.com

Artist Elena Zolotnitsky is pulling out all the stops for her upcoming solo exhibition, ENCHANTED, at SHOH Gallery in Berkeley, California, from April 1 to 24. On view will be a large collection of works that show her creative progression over the past few years. The selection of mixed media pieces, from multiple ongoing series, allow viewers to experience a sense of wonder while portraying beauty, enchantment and mystery. There are three categories that the work will roughly fit into for the show including “faces/heads/figures,” “flowers” and “chairs.”

Her chair paintings are from the ongoing EXTINCT SERIES, which are “portraits” of antique armchairs that exist only in the artist’s imagination. Each is painted in a color representing an emotion. Zolotnitsky explains, “The first one I painted refused to come to life [until] I laid the gold leaf application on its backing, reminiscent of vertebrae...That intuitive move transformed the object of an old chair into a species of extinction. The reference that gave the name to the first painting and to the series.”

Rose Experiment is from her ongoing series The Grid, where she uses “archival masking tape as a grid on mylar before the oil paint application,” she says. “Initially it was an experiment and it is reflected in the name.”

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4/1-4/30
Boston, MA
Margaret Gerding: Solo Exhibition
Arden Gallery
(617) 247-0610 • www.ardengallery.com

Margaret Gerding moved to Kennebunkport, Maine, five years ago and now has a deeper appreciation and understanding of the intensity of light by the sea. The artist, who finds it beneficial to her work to paint both plein air and in the studio, says, “My work is about solitude, being one with nature and capturing those moments of peace.”

Throughout the month of April, Arden Gallery in Boston will exhibit eight large new oil paintings by Gerding based on the coastal landscape and with an emphasis on light and sky. “Gerding’s works possess a heightened luminosity,” says gallery owner Zola Solamente. “An otherworldly radiance washes across her many misty estuaries, her immense vacillating skies, her serene marshes at sunset, her rocky coastal islands, her blurred dusky horizon lines and her sun-dappled grassy sand dunes.”

Among the pieces in the show is Coastal Light, measuring 40 inches square. The artist says this painting and others on view “tell this story of light, color and emotion. It is a reminder of how fleeting these images are.”

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4/10-5/8
Los Angeles, CA
Shawn Huckins: The Birds Will Sing
George Billis Gallery
(310) 838-3685 • www.georgebillis.com

In his upcoming solo exhibition The Birds Will Sing at George Billis Gallery in Los Angeles, Shawn Huckins will showcase 10 works that combine historical landscape paintings of the 18th and 19th centuries with modern-day messages reminiscent of those seen online or through texting. This juxtaposition offers “a comparison on civility and where we place our priorities.”

Huckins says, “The theme for this show is sourcing text about love since love effects each and every one of us. Positive or negative. Love is a universal language all cultures understand. This show focuses on the struggles of love with dark humored, sarcastic text.”

Each work is hand-painted by the artist but they are often confused for digital reproductions because of the style employed. Huckins does use technology to get a feel for the text composition and style, but then draws the layout onto the canvas and uses traditional painting methods. More recently, he also has been playing with handwritten text to give a more organic feeling to the painting rather than the blocked text that may be on a computer or phone. This can be seen in Sunset In the Rockies: Whoever I End Up With, I’m Sorry, which is one of a few works featuring a landscape from Albert Bierstadt, whom the artist admires.

The Birds Will Sing will be on view April 10 through May 8. —