Shades of Winter show - January 2023

     Let me start by thanking and congratulating the artist-participants in the

Shades of Winter exhibition for commitment to ongoing creativity and contribution

to this hearty representation of the local art scene.

     In the challenge of conferring merit awards, I was guided primarily by

facture, or the manner in which each artist used her/his selected materials to

engage and push rudimentary evocation of a wintery sensation (representation of

snow, denuded tree limbs, the color blue).

     Color temperature modulations, layers of marks large and small, physical,

gestural decisions made to elaborate on initial approaches, willingness to focus on

certain edges and shapes while allowing others their supporting cast roles, scale and

flatness or depth of the work, all create haunting visual worlds. These works

ruminate on the idea of winter as a season of certain barren, brutally stark qualities

tinged with a hint of nostalgia.

     It was a joy to discover insistent tiny high chroma blue negative shapes and

stubbornly curving linear marks in the reflection (or was it initially the thing-itself)

of the building in Novelli's Icelandic Winter, recognize the truth of wilted yellow-

orange grass and overall spaciousness in Faggard's Cold Winter in Texas, and think

on the passage of time while examining the paper support with marks, applied and

organically intrinsic, of Kessler's Winter King.

     Finally, communicated time investment, craft and earnest sense of discovery

contributed to honorable mention selections.

Creatively Yours,

Xenia Fedorchenko