William Hutton, and artists Martha Jones and Brian Kelley at the Storyteller Opening Reception

Hello Gallery Patrons,

The "Storyteller: Tales in Art and Fiction" exhibition will be open to the public until December 28, 2012.

Over 18 artists are represented including Dana Jo Cooley, Sarah Irvin , Martha Jones, Mimi Verhulst Lanese, Jean Peacock, Tom Wessells, Glenn Shepard, Robert Brooks, Lee Matney, Jon Moneymaker, Larry Vanover, Christina Ownby, Linda Mitchell, Paul Thomas, Tyrus Lytton, Ray Hershberger, Janice Gay Maker, Fred Freeman, Martin McFadden and more.

Tyrus Lytton exhibits his diversity in his wide range of media and content. His work displays his capability in photography, mixed media and oil painting. Anticipation and Release serves as an imposing presence in the gallery, as the largest work being shown. As the viewer examines the work more closely, the intimate details of the twisted twine, and the soft hues become apparent.

Works featured from Tom Wessels “Curiosities Series” evoke the historiography of museums and connoisseurship. He examines the practice of collecting treasured objects, and explores the context in which these objects might occupy in a private collection. His cabinets prove to be “a fanciful take on this historic furniture form… curiosities in themselves.”

Mimi Verhulst Lanese's works are imbued with a surreal quality. She has the “hope that they evoke a range of reactions, emotions and meanings, which are as personal to each viewer as they are to me.” She depicts easily recognizable objects in a slightly alienating way creating a twilight effect for the viewer.

Christine K. Harris creates otherwordly sculptural objects that suggest themes of motherhood. The creatures she creates combine aspects of female women, birds, and architecture—these female figures therefore serve as the primary content of the compositions, but also the structure within which the composition is framed. The contemplation of the creatures depicted, and the sometimes-mournful and anguished quality of their situation, bypasses any potential alienation of the viewer, and evokes only sympathy, empathy and a shared sense of confusion about existence and responsibility.

Works exhibited by artist Linda Mitchell push the boundaries between two-dimensional and three-dimensional art. Much of her oeuvre is influenced by the motivations and forms of animals as well as humans. Her work in this show displays usually disconnected realities pushed together within her compositions. She juxtaposes worlds, and makes the viewer question certain assumptions about our own reality.

Michelle Repper

Sarah Irvin’s Work in Storyteller

Sarah Irvin's Work is informed by essential questions about human frailty, the limits of memory, and the pursuit of the ideal. Her highly expressive paintings are intuitive, joyful, and filled with energy.

The lilies that quietly pervade much of her work from 2010 are a tribute to her paternal grandfather, Jimmy Rogers, who was instrumental in establishing and designing the International Water Lily Gardens of San Angelo, Texas. The Gardens have become a landmark, and are a testament to the inexorable human urge to strive for perfection. “I believe his main goal in creating the garden was to provide a place where one can experience the ideal even if only for a fleeting moment,” Irvin says. The lotus is in fact an ancient and celebrated symbol of perfection in many cultures, and Irvin’s lilies seem to provide a passing glimpse onto the uncorrupted beauty of the natural world, as they float layered between washes of paint.

Amara Craighill

Martha Jones' Work

These 2 sculptures are representative of the sculptural assemblages I have been making during the last year. In this body of work I am interested in seeing what results come about when I put objects that refer to the very ancient, to nature, to personal memory and to childhood into the context of newly antiquated technologies. The miniature theaters composed from the hollowed bodies of televisions and computer monitors make a space for implied dramatic action caught in stillness and silence. The works ask the viewer to consider the way that myth usurps the repurposed and recycled object.

The painting I am showing here also examines how a single irreversible event will mark the shift from palpable reality into the world of myth. The painting, executed when I received the news that the painter Cy Twombly had died, amounts to a sort of essay on the themes of death and loss and the profound influences that an older and more developed artistic culture can exercise over a younger culture and its artists

The "Normal Rearranged" exhibition is simultaneously being featured in our Annex Gallery. This exhibition includes the works of Jenny Pritchard, Peter Pritchard, and Karl Greaves, and will also be open to the public until December 28, 2012.

We also are pleased to announce our collaboration with Colonna and Company LLC who has created a shop in our Annex Space and will be holding their grand opening.

Many of the works are on sale in the gallery as well as on our website.

We hope to see you soon!

Sincerely,

Lee Matney

Director and Curator

Linda Matney Fine Art Gallery

5435 Richmond Rd

Williamsburg VA 23188

(757) 675-6627