Arcadia Contemporary | 8/19-9/6 | New York, NY

Beautiful Variety

Arcadia Contemporary presents works priced at $5,000 and under.

This August, Arcadia Contemporary hosts its annual Five and Under exhibition. Currently in its eighth year, the exhibition features nearly 200 exceptional works by both emerging and established artists from around the world—all priced at $5,000 or less.

Artwork within the show runs the gamut of what Arcadia Contemporary has to offer, from figurative works and portraiture to still lifes, landscapes, cityscapes and more.

Steven Rosendale, Cadillac Motel, acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20"

Steven Rosendale’s Cadillac Motel washes over you with a wave of nostalgia. “With Cadillac Motel, I use what I call ‘second hand imagery.’ It is a re-imagined vintage postcard,” he says. “Growing up in Australia in the 1980s, we only had three main television stations, and all they could afford to play was constant reruns of shows and movies from the 1960s, so I grew up really believing that the outside adult world was going to look and feel like the ’60s even though it was the 1980s. When I finally did reach adulthood and found the world was, of course, nothing like I had seen on TV, I had this nostalgia or longing for that once imagined world. So my only access to the 1960s is to use images from television, movies and advertisements, etc. to recreate the world as I thought it would be in my art.”

Jeffrey Ripple, What Remains, oil on panel, 12 x 12"

Diagonals, an oil on panel by Cesar Santander, is an eye-catching square composition of a bunch of brightly colored crayons. “Diagonals is the last completed painting in a series I began in 2006. It is one of the smallest but most intense of my crayon paintings. I tried to include as much detail and color as I could within the confines of the painting. I also tried to make each crayon an individual and different from its neighbors by showing how it was worn and all of its imperfections. It is a modest subject, but I hope that it can be transformed into something much more by the intense care and love that I bring to it,” says Santander.

Cesar Santander, Diagonals, oil on panel, 16 x 16"

“Try to Hold Them is part of a series of portraits seen through a veil of translucent florals and foliage. These impressionistic interpretations of nature explore the fleeting feeling of connection to a beauty that we cannot keep,” artist Jess Currier says of her ethereal figurative/floral piece.

Jess Currier, Try to Hold Them, oil on panel, 24 x 18"

The concept of time is a primary theme in Caren Wynne’s three paintings in the Five and Under exhibition. “[These paintings are about] moments singled out in the continuously moving world,” says the artist. Richmond District—a clean, crisp painting of a white building wall in partial shade—represents midday. “Time can be a very uncomfortable experience; it can be endless when waiting for someone you love and goes all too quickly when the reunion comes. That pull and push is what I want to the viewer to feel.”

Caren Wynne, Richmond District, oil on panel, 14 x 11"

An example of a still life in the show is Jeffrey Ripple’s oil What Remains. “Persimmons, for me, are a late season treasure and a subject I have loved for their vibrant color, quartered structure, and the contrast between the smooth, glossy skin and the dry texture of the calyx on top. In this painting, I wanted a sense of the light of late fall—and the borage flowers, which are among the last in gardens where I live, felt like the perfect complement for the color of the fruit,” says Ripple.