Grand Vista

This exhibition will highlight recent work by Wes Sherman, Gary Stephan, Ilse Murdock, Judy Simonian and Aaron Williams. Guest-curated by native New Jersey artists Danielle Wolfrum and Wes Sherman, these artworks will investigate landscape painting as an enduring theme in genre painting as it enters the twenty-first century. The work will be on view  in the Noyes-Stockton Gallery at the Noyes Arts Garage.

The five artists in this exhibition approach the subject with distinct perspectives. Aaron Williams manipulates mass reproductions of iconic natural features, negotiating and reshaping the relationship the viewer holds with these famous places. Gary Stephan’s geometrically precise brushstrokes belie the organic inspiration behind his paintings, redesigning the landscape along a more industrial bent. Judy Simonian uses landscape as a vehicle for expression, carrying on themes of disorientation and hope from her larger body of work. Conversely, Ilse Murdock paints within nature in order to directly situate herself and her audience as part and parcel of the larger natural world, and to indelibly tie the preservation of nature to her own artistic process. Lastly, artist and curator of the exhibition Wes Sherman’s works adhere the closest to the landscape genre, with impressionistic directionality to guide the viewer along the same paths Sherman traveled when he took in the vista himself.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website