(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Mixed media constructions and drawings by Linda Cross, paintings by William Clutz, and encaustic works by Allyson Levy and Joshua Brehse will be on view at Carrie Haddad Gallery from Thursday, September 25, 2014, through Sunday, November 2, 2014. There will be an opening reception for the new exhibitions on Saturday, September 27, from 6 to 8pm.
Combining aspects of painting and sculpture, Linda Cross introduces “Sections”, a body of work that acknowledges the fragility of our natural world. Influenced by the terrain in New Mexico, Mexico, Maine and now the Hudson Valley, her work deconstructs traditional form, attaining equilibrium in her work as much the same way as it is in nature. Cross layers paper, Styrofoam and acrylic paint to demonstrate how time, elements, and mankind have changed the environment we live in today. American art critic and professor at Pratt Institute, Robert C. Morgan, writes “Cross makes the representational appear abstract and, in turn, transforms the abstract into representation… her recent work represents the impact of nature as found in excavation sites where the chiseling effect of time and erosion has pitted, scarred, and blurred hard stone surfaces.” In addition to her larger wall sculptures, a few selected pencil drawings will also be included in this exhibit. Linda Cross has been represented by Carrie Haddad since 2000.
William Clutz’s reputation as an artist was established with the revival of figurative representation in American art during the 50s and 60s when abstract expression was the orthodox approach to art. Commended for using urban landscapes as a motif for detailing sunlight and shadows, it is this dispersing light that denotes the vibrations of the city, affecting the mood and vitality of its inhabitants. His series of “Single Figures” made in 1987 captures a universally felt sense of nostalgia for what it means to mobilize within a city. The artist unites everyday people living everyday lives (or cats, or dogs for that matter) by observing their shared need to continually cross the street. This simple task necessary for getting from point A to point B varies in degrees of difficulty; an easy walk in the park quickly becomes a sprint to avoid oncoming rush hour traffic. Significant works by Clutz are included in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden DC, the Museum of Modern Art NY, Metropolitan Museum of Art NY, Museum of the City of New York NY, Corcoran Gallery of Art DC, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum NY, and many others.
Artists Allyson Levy and Joshua Brehse both share a textural approach to exploring and illustrating the world around them. Brehse lives in the picturesque rural village of Germantown, N.Y., where interactions with the lush landscape of the Hudson Valley are hard to ignore. While his work is primarily rooted in abstraction, he is very much influenced by the history of American landscape painting. Brehse uses a combination of melted beeswax and oil to attain a carved and sculpted texture to his work, explaining that he “prefers to approach [his] work as a slow accumulation of solutions and possibilities worked on and through.”
Allyson Levy lives in Stone Ridge, N.Y., on a four-acre botanical garden “Hortus Conclusus” that consists of over 10,000 edibles and rare, decorative plants and trees planted by her and her husband over the span of 13 years. Levy’s devotion to plants and overall fascination with earth’s bounty spills over into her artwork, in which she, too, works with encaustic to embed varied plant particles and other organic matter in time and space. Her original inspiration was based on a 15th century practice of preserving seeds in wax for storing on shipping vessels. The possibility of repopulating different species in the future from her ex-situ seed library soon expanded to include all types of matter from her garden and other organic matter including eggshells, cicada wings and flower petals. Allyson Levy has exhibited regionally since 2000.