Betty Cuningham Gallery Host 'Thaw,' 2/26-4/2

On Saturday, February 26, Betty Cuningham Gallery will open Thaw, a group show featuring a selection of works by the gallery's artists. The show will be on view through April 2.

The title of the show, Thaw, is simply a departure point as we enter spring after a cold and snowy winter. It is, however, taken from a 1972 painting featured in the show titled A Thaw, by Rackstraw Downes. This painting is among Downes' early representational works signifying his departure from abstraction but comes before his strict adherence to on site painting. Along side the Downes will be an early work by Philip Pearlstein, Standing Male, Sitting Female Nudes, from 1969. This painting (another sort of thaw) was shocking at the time as it depicts, in Pearlstein's characteristically cool, objective manner, a black male nude and a white female nude.

Also featured in the exhibition, there will be: major collaged works on paper from The War Series by Judy Glantzman, all completed in 2010, after seeing Picasso's Guernica; a felt and resin sculpture, Carmelite II, by Mia Westerlund Roosen which stands in frozen movement; a perforated, aluminum Diaphan by Clytie Alexander; an ice-blue watercolor by Andrew Forge; and Titleless, an eight foot tall abstract painting by Gordon Moore. These works all echo the coldness of winter due to their cool restrained colors and sharp lines.

As "thaw" is a verb as well as a noun, the exhibition moves into spring with works by Jake Berthot, William Bailey, and Charles Garabedian. Jake Berthot's abstract, notched painting, Bone, from 1973 has a center field of yellow-green U-framed by slightly warmer tones. In House by the Sea, William Bailey paints, in his imaginary interior, a standing woman next to an open window to the sea. In Forest Charles Garabedian paints a brilliantly colored semi abstract canvas of trees in bloom. And finally, hats off to Spring, with a large painting titled Floral Park by Greg Drasler.