Four Painters


4 - 27 February, 2010

Reception:
Thursday, 4 February, 5-7 PM

Four Painters

Frank Bernarducci and Louis K. Meisel are pleased to announce the group exhibition entitled Four Painters, featuring work by Ester Curini, Julie Harvey, Cheryl Kelley, and Raphaella Spence. While these four artists are considered realist painters, their contrasting subject matter makes for a captivating group exhibition.

Ester Curini, an Italian born, self taught artist, has found her niche in painting farm animals in a starkly and confrontational manner. She isolates the figures on seamless white backgrounds, portraying them in an almost three-dimensional quality similar to a portrait photographer. Curini's precisionist technique can be seen in each brushstroke and especially in each strand of hair rendered on the animal, adding a quality of innocence and purity, as seen in Fosco and Agostina da Ticineto. Aiming to capture the essence of the animal, Curini utilizes various perspectives and challenges the viewer’s perceptions.

Big engine, muscle cars of the 1960s and 1970s are the central focus for artist Cheryl Kelley. Her works include extreme perspectives of modified hot-rods. In Vintage Chrysler, Kelley depicts a sleek, black car highlighted with reflective chrome detailing. Focusing solely on the frontal hood and bumper, this unique and captivating view is softened with a feminine grace along each curvature and line, leaving viewers yearning for more. Her succinct canvases and focal points are what make Kelley's paintings so intriguing.

Julie Harvey is perhaps best known for her paintings of energetic 'op-art' go-go dancers. Working on polychromed aluminum, Harvey is able to create an extremely smooth and flat surface adding to the chaotic backgrounds and dazzling colors, trademarks of Harvey's work. Visually stimulating and enchanting, her works "glorify one of the most intrinsic and demonstrative feminine energies – the evocative movements of dance."

Utilizing the most sophisticated camera technology available, Raphaella Spence is able to capture street scenes and aerial views with stunning detail and uses these photographs to create her hyper-realistic panoramas of cities around the world. In Grand Canal she depicts contemporary Venice, utilizing the same perspective as Canaletto. Vanishing points are what give her work their depth and three-dimensional quality. Spence is perhaps best known for her adept ability in capturing moments in time; from Beijing to Central Park, her canvases serve as snapshots of a society’s cultural makeup.

This exhibit remains on view through Saturday, February 27, 2010. -- For further information and images of works from the exhibition, please contact Frank Bernarducci or Holly Cairns at 212-593-3757.