CJ Lori at the Lyman-Eyer Gallery: Tally-Ho

The Lyman-Eyer Gallery is pleased to present CJ Lori's new work. You may peruse all of CJ's neosurrealistic paintings on our web site http://www.lymaneyerart.com/. CJ Lori shares her thoughts with the viewer... "I paint a tree or landscape as a metaphoric portrait in which we can see ourselves. In branches, fields and water are patterns of repetition and cycles of time that echo in our lives on levels both visual and innate. Through my paintings, I try to reconcile the strength and beauty with the vulnerability and decay faced by all living things – to simultaneously celebrate splendor while acknowledging its inevitable ruin. I also explore issues of perception and memory. The desire to have another see through my eyes is a compelling motivation. To me, painting is a form of communication through which I try to convey my experience in a way that the viewer will see what I see and feel what I feel. I exaggerate or distort color, form and composition to emphasize sensations and elicit questions. Memory distorts reality by its very nature, shifting, selecting and discarding without conscious decision. The process of painting is like visual memory in action, with the ability and motivation for more deliberate choices. For example, I juxtapose the image of a sculpted human head in front of a landscape. It is painted with the same color palette, yet the head is so close in the foreground that it appears separate. Is it confronting the viewer or a passive element in a scene? Is it part of a figure standing in the landscape or is that head in a different plane of existence? Similar questions are raised when the underground is made visible and by the squares within the composition of certain paintings. The image in the square relates to the rest of the landscape, but it has been altered. The proximity, season, time of day or mood has shifted. Which are we to believe? How can either one be true if they exist together? If they are both true, then what else is true that we cannot see? Do we feel confused or delighted by the addition? These “windows” are reminders of both subjective perception and infinite possibility. My primary medium is oil paint on canvas, wood or panel. Paint is applied in many layers, building and adding nuance through color. Occasionally I layer acrylic paint with texture gels and crushed mica to create the effect of looking beyond a rock wall in the foreground. I often work with tiny brushes for fine detail. I find satisfaction in intricacy, because it appeals to me viscerally, and because it parallels some of the complexities I am trying to capture and express in my work."

Rope by Michael Breyette

The Lyman-Eyer Gallery is pleased to present the newest original pastel by Michael Breyette entitled Rope. This has just been released today so you are among the first to see this 'sensuous' work. Michael conveys his thoughts on this work..."The handsome cowboy wields his rope with a honed skill as the tightly woven braids become an extension of his sinewy forearms and powerful hands. A cowboy with a lasso against a cloudy sky... seemed simply enough. No complicated background, one lone figure, not even much clothing. I did not anticipate the complexity and the tedium involved with rendering rope in pastel. I do much of the work with my fingers, but here I needed to also employ quite a bit of pencil work to get that braided look of rope. Usually areas that need that intricate touch are small, whereas this just seemed to go on for miles." Please visit the Lyman-Eyer Gallery web site at http://www.lymaneyerart.com/ to peruse more work by Michael Breyette.

The Ethos Of An Outsider...

The Lyman-Eyer Gallery is pleased to present the wonderful mixed media on paper works by abstractionist Brian Dennis. "My goal is two fold, obviously I want to create something that presents a beauty and truth. Second, and what is personally most important is the act of making. While working I become focused only on the matter in hand and I experience a wholeness with the world. Ironically, the results express the ethos of an outsider, things are hidden or so obscured it is often difficult to know what you are seeing. This outcome is very akin to my experience when I am making. I am vaguely aware of a liquid consciousness, passing snippets of something dissolving and reforming, all just out of range of knowing. It is this realm that directs my work. Transcendence is also important to my work, not only the experience of Making, but also for the materials to become other then what they were. I am drawn to use common materials that I strive to push beyond their original context. I do the same with the photographic images I appropriate. They are chosen usually not by their subject matter, but by a shape or color that interests me, a form that may capture the realm floating in my peripheral vision." Please visit the artwork by Brian Dennis at www.lymaneyrart.com.

Color, Light Texture & Spirituality

The Lyman-Eyer Gallery presents Keith Breitfeller's abstractions! Color, light, texture and spirituality are the focus of my work. The methodology I follow is the use of simple subject matter, a minimalist method of painting, repetitive brush strokes and composition that provides a slow and continuous evolution of my work. Usually my paintings start with an underlying grid building the subject matter onto this and using it as a foundation to guide the painting strokes. The painting process is carried out from dark to light and from low intensity to high intensity of color. The application of paint in a series of short brush strokes laying, down one layer of pigment and texture, coming back and then, to repeat the process. This gives the paintings their atmospheric quality. I usually work in series, taking one theme and exploring its potential, allowing it to grow from painting to painting. This lends a continuity to the work. Painting for me is a meditative activity, which I hope translates to the viewer. Please vist http://www.lymaneyerart.com/ to peruse the wonderful work by Keith Breitfelller.

Classical Sculptures with Whimsy

The Lyman-Eyer Gallery in Provincetown has 40 new sculptures by Campbell Paxton. These intimate works are either on wood pedestals or framed for wall mounting or shelf display. We have several bronze works that are just stunning. Please peruse our website at www.lymaneyerart.com to see the many sculptures by the artist. Campbell Paxton writes.."One theory of style suggests that art is a contest. An artist is always in competition with other artists, with reality, with the challenges presented by subject and the limitations of materials. Most of all he competes with himself. On any given day he can pick his opponents. Mine have ranged from Mannerism to Muybridge, from Classical to Baroque; from wax to bronze to polymer clay. It is a contest for possession. I want to wrest secrets, essential means of expression, from those who came before, and to absorb them so completely that they become an integral part of my own evolving style. I hope my delight and energy in pursuit of victory are evident and that, though I have created works which are traditional, I have not become merely academic."

Deborah Barlow & Pat Mattina Abstractions

The Lyman-Eyer Gallery, 432 Commercial Street in Provincetown, is pleased to announce new work by Deborah Barlow & Pat Mattina. Please peruse their unique abstractions on http://www.lymaneyerart.com/.

Deborah Barlow’s new work continues to explore the atmospheric qualities of layering the painting surface with powdered pigments. Using a unique technique that she has been developing over the last 26 years, her paintings achieve dimensionality and depth without the use of traditional techniques of representation or perspective. “In a culture that over-identifies with rationalism, the collective map of reality overlooks what lies outside that narrowly-defined frame. Getting closer to what isn’t obvious usually means slowing down, paying attention to what may seem subtle or insignificant--the crack in a wall, vague markings on a sandstone butte. Painting is the best way I know of bringing that liminality to the surface. I want my work to create a new sense of place, an alternative atmosphere that speaks for what is indecipherable.”

Barlow writes of her new body of work… “Nature is everywhere in my work, but what compels me most is the natural world at the edges. The extremes are most provocative to me, such as the emptiness of a desert expanse or the intricate layering of a microscopic world view. It’s what isn’t obvious that keeps me looking, and I look without any desire to mimic or reproduce those marginal worlds. My paintings are not objects as much as they are a record of how to search—how to listen (aurally and visually) multi-dimensionally and how to respond to what I hear without fixing it in a representation, without imprisoning it in a picture. The complexity of the surface is a complexity of perceiving, synthesizing, and navigating a limitless world.” Deborah Barlow was one of a select group of American artists invited to participate in the 2003 Biennale Internazionale Dell’Arte Contemporanea in Florence, Italy. She was an artist-in-residence at Anam Cara in West County Cork, Ireland and has exhibited her work nationally.

Pat Mattina’s current body of work is entitled Earth Songs of Peace. “I paint to practice being present in body, mind, and spirit, a practice that serves me well as an artist seeking balance in all of life’s offerings. By staying in the moment with the soul-searching, meditative, curious inner dialog inherent to the creative process, I am able to achieve the vision I seek. When I paint, I listen for and attend to the sensation of a sound lying somewhere within the surface of my work. I visualize this auditory experience through the colors, lines, and shapes that are a part of my artistic language. Each sound produces an opportunity to ignore or to make visible a potential image. My decisions are made with both spontaneity and deliberateness. A vibrating mark, perhaps a trill in disguise, is nurtured through the placement of personal and archetypal symbols. Intentional dots, random scribbles, and various line combinations work together to provide the rhythm and repetition that I seek. By layering multiple thin washes of acrylic color, I hear into visual existence an inner and outer symphony of movement, stillness, and sound. Key to this somewhat orchestral experience is a desire for compositional balance. My meditative paintings are interwoven melodies emanating from the harmony and discord found in art and life.” Pat Mattina will give a gallery talk on Saturday, July 19th at 11:30 AM entitled “Moving with the Shadow; Hearing the Light.”

These intriguing and personal images will be on view from July 18th through July 30th.
The Opening Reception will be held on Friday, July 18th at 7:00 p.m.

The Still-Life Comes of Age

The Lyman-Eyer Gallery is pleased to present a new artist to the gallery for your perusal. Phillip Gabrielli oil on canvas and linen paintings are stunning and my be viewed at http://www.lymaneyerart.com/. Gabrielli paints with the skill seen in the work of the old masters and the insight found in the most provoking of contemporary artists. In his paintings, he pays homage to art history, acknowledging the process of studying traditional masterpieces as a contemporary painter.
In many of Gabrielli's paintings, he represents works of other artists within his own still life. This other work of art thus becomes an object in his painting and therefore interacts with the other elements in that painting, creating an active dialogue between the concepts of art, the elements that make up a work of art and the work of art as an object. His use of humor and wit is also apparent in the inclusion of odd juxtapositions, such as an apple on the shelf echoing the round forms of a nude in the "painting within the painting" that hangs on the wall of the piece. Thus, the "actual" objects in the still life seem to react to or comment on the work of art represented in the painting, sometimes in surprising ways

In all of his work, Gabrielli marshals a precise yet subtle control which is absolutely necessary for such realism to succeed. The images seem to have been poured onto the linen in one motion; his use of rich color and powerful shadow seem at once both fantastically poetic and true to life. In this way, Gabrielli's paintings also reflect classical masterpieces by incorporating the discipline, technique and invention necessary to create great works of art, regardless of the content.

In a new series of small figure paintings, Gabrielli seems to have embarked on a project that might be termed "retrograde". But he is really just focusing on what has always been at the heart of his kind of realist painting: transubstantiation; that is, trying to make the substance of paint transform into the image of what is represented. in this case, paint into flesh. The subject of the male nude was dictated by a life-long interest in anatomical studies and life drawing and by the availability and generosity of a spectacular model, Sean Phillip. He is thirty years old, phenomenally good-looking, very at ease with his own body and, most importantly, has the exact same proportions as the statue of Hermes at Olympia. What Praxiteles created as the apogee of the Classical period in ancient Greece, Sean Phillip carries with him in his own flesh. In this new series, Gabrielli is trying to turn paint into the image of that flesh.

Gabrielli earned a BA in Art History at Harvard, an MFA in Painting at the Boston Museum School and spent years studying and working in Italy, principally in Rome, Siena and Verona. He has shown his work in galleries in Boston, New York, Boca Raton and San Francisco. He currently lives and works in an old, remodeled hay barn in the Catskills of New York. He returns to Italy often, or as often as he can work up the courage to face the exchange rate.

Escape by Michael Breyette

The Lyman-Eyer Gallery, 432 Commercial Street in Provincetown, is pleased to present ‘ESCAPE’ by Michael Breyette. You may peruse his wonderful pastels by visiting http://www.lymaneyerart.com/. Someone once said to me, "You are really talented, but why that subject matter? Have you ever tried something else like landscapes?" Well, I do love landscapes and the way they can draw you into their world. And while I sometimes wish I had the passion to draw them, that's just not me. Being a gay man, there are obvious reasons I draw what I do. But where to draw the line between my inspiration from sexuality and my inspiration from beauty, I am just not sure. However I do know that my art is not all about sex. As much as I may find a sunset, waterfall or glass skyscraper beautiful, I find that same kind of beauty in a shirtless guy. For me, the male body is a true work of art. Perhaps growing up in an atmosphere where it would have been detrimental to my health to be caught ogling a hot guy is why I am so drawn to capturing that taboo eye candy on paper. I grew up in rural upstate NY. Not the most nurturing environment for a budding gay artist. Due to my conservative surroundings, I always felt the need to include female subjects in my artwork. I felt as long as my paintings featured a busty female, it was safe to include a muscular Adonis. Sometimes I would disguise the hot guys in my paintings behind a science fiction motif, or by doing a series such as "Signs of the Zodiac," where one would feature a hot guy, and the next would be of a female. I did whatever I could to express myself, even if I did have to use the females in my art as a kind of security blanket. But even those women that I felt compelled to draw always ended up being rather muscular and manly looking. One of my earliest positive experiences as a gay artist took place in my early twenties as an employee at an art supply store. Here I found a close friend in a co-worker named Deana. I was finally able to confide in someone about being gay. The acceptance I received from her was something I had never experienced from anyone in my family. I no longer felt so alone and different from everyone else. After some gentle prodding from Deana, I began to display some of my pieces in the store. I was very pleased when this created interest in my work and even brought me a few commissions. People actually felt I was good enough to be paid for something I loved to do. So here I was, doing well with the commissions I had garnered. While I was happy that people thought I had talent and wanted me to paint their portraits, I quickly grew dissatisfied with simply painting what others wanted me to paint. I was grateful for the opportunity to earn money at something I loved doing. But it was frustrating not to be able to paint something that made me happy. I slowly began to phase out doing portraits for people, and before long I had all but given up painting. For a few years, I would rarely pick up an art brush or a stick of pastel. But then I discovered the Internet. I started out by creating a personal website where I mentioned being an artist. That led to people inquiring about my artwork. I soon got the nerve to put up a few pieces. I had been so afraid to share my paintings of nude men with people I knew. But here I was, showing them off to the whole world. It felt so liberating. In next to no time I started receiving compliments on my style and technique, as well as on the subject matter. I would get emails from other gay men who would tell me how inspiring they found my artwork to be... how refreshing it was to see real artwork featuring nude men, not just more porn on the web. It was around this time that I opted for a change of scenery and moved to Massachusetts. No longer living "back home" where I had allowed my surroundings to stifle my creativity, I was finally able to express myself as I had always wanted. No more hiding behind drawings of women, family portraits or those lovely little landscapes. My passion is the nude male body, and that is what I choose to draw.

Sally Brophy ~ Provincetown White Line Prints

The Lyman-Eyer Gallery is proud to present the white line prints and oil monoprints by Sally Brophy, a Provincetown artist. You may view her current exhibition on the gallery website at http://www.lymaneyerart.com/. Sally Brophy grew up in Central Maine and was always involved in some type of artistic endeavor working mostly with acrylics and pen and ink throughout high school and college. "After graduating in 1982 from Curry College in Milton, MA with a B.A. in English, I moved to Laguna Beach, CA and began my career as a writer and graphic artist. I returned to Maine from 1986-1996 where I continued to do graphic design. During that time I studied ceramics at the Portland Pottery School for eight years. I moved to Boston in 1996 to work as Art Director for a group of parenting publications. While there I also took classes in woodworking and bookmaking. It wasn’t until moving to Provincetown six years ago that I finally discovered the art form that most appeals to me. After 20 years as a graphic artist, I was finding that computers were pushing my design work to be faster and faster, and more about technology than technique. As a result, I was especially drawn to printmaking – the slow, deliberate process of cutting wood to create a line, then gradually applying paint to board and paper to produce a print – brought me back to the roots of the creative process. I also like the connection I feel to Provincetown’s past artists through working on a technique that began here."

HISTORY OF THE WHITE LINE PRINT
This single block method of color printmaking originated in Provincetown in 1915, a year after a group of American printmakers abroad, responding to an impending war, packed their bags and headed to this artist’s colony at the tip of Cape Cod. The group, whose members had been studying in Paris, were drawn together by friendship and mutual interest in the woodcut medium. Ethel Mars, Maud Squire, Ada Gilmore and Mildred McMillen were joined by Juliette Nichols and B.J.O. Nordfeldt, forming a group called the “Provincetown Printmakers.” Blanche Lazzell, who also had studied for a time in Paris, joined them later that year. The Provincetown Print combines all the colors on one block of wood, differing in this way from the Japanese and German methods of color printmaking which called for one block of wood per color. This new technique simplified the process by having the entire design cut on one block. The V-shaped cuts separate each color and, in printing, leave a white line that emphasizes the design. The method appears deceptively simple, requiring only a block of wood, a cutting knife, and a large spoon. The artist applies watercolor to small sections of the block and hand prints each section by rubbing the paper against the wood with the back of a spoon. While a block can be re-used to create another print, each print will always be unique due to the hands-on technique and the nature of watercolor. Probably the most well-known artist of this medium, Blanche Lazzell, was inspired by the Cubist principles she studied in France and the colors of the Fauvists artists she knew in Provincetown. In 1930 she wrote, “Originality, simplicity, freedom of expression, and above all sincerity, with a clean-cut block, are characteristics of a good woodblock print.” The process of white-line printmaking has been passed down by individuals through generations. I began studying the method four years ago with Kathi Smith, who learned it from her grandmother, Ferol Sibley Warthen. was a well established artist who spent 37 summers in Provincetown. She learned the technique from Blanche Lazzell, who learned it from Oliver Chaffee, who in turn learned it from his wife Ada Gilmore, one of the six original printmakers to begin this Provincetown tradition.