Natura Sublime Featuring paintings by Marti Somers, Tamera English, Paul Hunter, Michael Hoffman, Robin Denevan, and Kevin Sonmor March 19 through April 14, 2010

Addington Gallery is proud to present “Natura Sublime”, a group exhibition exploring how artists use the genre of landscape painting and painterly improvisation incorporating images of the natural world to comment on the psychological and spiritual states of both the artist and potential viewer. Traditions of "nature painting" and "landscape" are both honored and subverted in these works, as the artists move through and past ideas of naturalism and representation, entering a territory more subjective and open-ended for the viewer. The exhibition features recent work by new gallery artist Marti Somers, whose mixed media paintings evolve organically and offer surprises above and below their surfaces; Tamara English, whose work is teeming with life, illustrating the fertility, potency, and tenacity of nature; Paul Hunter, whose elegant works incorporate metal leaf, simultaneously recalling the sublime imagery of Asian screen painting and gothic altarpieces; Michael Hoffman, whose expressive yet controlled use of translucent layers and geometric compositions provide a balance between the atmospheric and the concrete; Robin Denevan, whose encaustic paintings evoke the great rivers of the world, providing a bridge to his experience of these exotic locals, and placing them indelibly into our collective imagination, and Kevin Sonmor, whose operatic compositions are powerful essays in the language of painterliness, both contemporary and classical, as they demonstrate how the act of painting can evoke and embody the mysteries of nature. Marti Somers Inventor mixed media on wood panel 32x30 Tamara English As That Began oil on canvas 30x40 Paul Hunter Vista #O gold leaf, bronze leaf, and acrylic on canvas 36x48 Michael Hoffman After the Rain oil and mixed media 24x24 Robin Denevan Waters Transparent encaustic and oil on canvas and panel 21x42 Kevin Sonmor Middle Boulevard oil on linen 40x40 Whether motivated by fantasy and personal longing, an obsession with history both private and public, or a search for meaningful metaphor, these artists all aspire to speak, in the words of author Simon Schama "to the heart of one of our most powerful yearnings: the craving to find in nature a consolation for our mortality." HOME | ARTISTS | UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS | RECENT EXHIBITIONS | GALLERY INFO | CONTACT