What a show and what a great space. If you haven’t been to the warm, well lit, Loft at Liz’s, the gallery’s salon-type vibe will win you over. Divergent Voices ran only a single week with an opening November 7th, but all of the artists’ works were profoundly affecting, and art lovers – or just simply anyone in search of a visually stimulating good time, would do well to seek them out individually.
Hosted by artist Susan Melly, who found the venue for her art critique group, and featuring the work of twelve artists including Stefanie Bauer, Melanie Newcombe, Cameron McIntyre, Andree B. Carter, Rin Colabucci, Gill Miller, Margaret Ouchida, Peter Walker, Gina Yu, Shula Singer Arbel, and Lucie Hinden, as well as Melly’s own, the idea for the show originated with the idea to compile a show featuring high-end, quality art work.
Andre Carter’s delicate work featured beading and stitching that seemed linked to Native American crafts woven by a lost tribe.
Peter Walker’s graphite on paper drawings were beautifully realized, stunningly hyper-realistic fine art.
Margaret Ouchida’s shadow boxes, below, danced with energy, miniaturized, perfect scenes that pulled viewers into their tiny, detailed framework. Each piece contains a minute, almost hidden toad. Find the talisman.
Below, Melanie Newcombe’s astonishing mesh sculptures are graceful, floating, dancers in the sea, mermaids on land, nymphs whose flesh has silvered. Based on clay figures that she creates, she uses a rudimentary wooden armature on which to build her ethereal mesh figures.
Susan Melly’s own work is equally charged. Melly’s work is all about the feminine, and female objectification. Offering up images about identity, sexuality, power, and industrial machines. The artist was inspired by a discovery of dress patterns and industrial-age sewing machines that were a part of her mother’s estate.
“She represents the nurturing aspect of woman,” Melly says of her figure below, part of a new body of work.
Below, Lucie Hinden’s Best Laid Plans series riffs on the idea of architectural blue prints, and creates images that feel like a patchwork quilt, or a landscape viewed from a seat on an airplane.
Below, Shuler Singer Arbel creates a world of color prisms, painted images that resemble mosaics, or pebbles from a rainbow. Geometric landscapes, patterns of water droplets…
The show was packed with brilliant, unique, stand-out pieces, a full-house crowd, and a delicious buffet, too, with food as diverse as the art, from quinoa salad to lemon bars. What better party than a celebration of art? In short: a great night whose “Divergent Voices” rang out loud and clear – follow these artists, visit their unique perspectives now, and in years to come.
- Genie Davis; Photos: Jack Burke