BY KAREN BOSSICK
When Gwynn Murrill was fishing around for subject matter for her sculpture, she was drawn to animal forms because of their complex beauty.
Her sculptures, which have evolved from carved wood to stone and marble carvings to bronze castings, just serve to emphasize that beauty.
“It is a challenge to try and take the form that nature makes so well and to derive my own interpretation of it,” she says.
Murrill has sculpted tigers and other exotic animals, but she often focuses on animals close to home in California, including coyotes, hawks, eagles and even snakes. She spends hours focusing not just on the form itself but on utilizing the negative space surrounding the form to create a visual abstraction.
“The negative space is as important to my sculpture as the positive space, evoking somewhat of a Yin and Yang relationship,” she says.
Her art has won her a Guggenheim Fellowship, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Rome Prize and a talent purchase award from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, including numerous exhibitions in top galleries around the world.
You can see her work at Gail Severn Gallery during the July Gallery Walk from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, July 7, at 400 First Ave. North.
Gail Severn Gallery is showcasing Murrill’s internationally recognized sculptures in the form of majestic deer and elegant raptors. The sculptures are reminiscent of ancient sculptures but made of bronze, wood or aluminum.
The gallery is also featuring Margaret Keelan’s ceramic sculptures of dolls and children that are both compelling and disconcerting. The figures appear to have been excavated, the layers of stains and glazes curling and peeling away creating the illusion of disintegrating paint over weathered wood.
And the gallery is featuring Venezuelan artist Daniel Diaz-Tai’s paintings—subconscious compositions that embrace the ups and downs of life.
Artists will be at the Gallery Walk and will hold a free Artist Chats at 10 a.m. Saturday, July 8, at the gallery.
Here are some of the other highlights of Friday’s Gallery Walk”
GILMAN CONTEMPORARY, 661 Sun Valley Road, is displaying Melvin Sokolsky’s iconic “Bubble” art, in which he suspended models floating in giant clear plastic bubbles above the River Seine in Paris for “Harper’s Bazaar” in 1963 and 1965. Sokolsky will not only be present for the opening of his “Imagination in Flight” exhibition during Friday’s Gallery Walk but he will discuss his work during a free presentation at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, July 6, at the gallery.
Concurrently, Gilman Contemporary is exhibiting Michael Massaia’s “Deep in a Dream, Central Park” series. The series is shot at the edge of dawn when the park is deserted. The New Jersey man’s work has been featured in a variety of media outlets, including CNN and The Washington Post.
In addition, the gallery is showing Maria Svarbova’s “Swimming Pool.” That series focuses on Soviet-era swimming pools, evoking a playful seriousness that has become part of Svarbova’s signature photographic aesthetic. Named one of Forbes Slovakia’s 30 under 30, this is her second gallery exhibition in the United States.
KNEELAND GALLERY, 271 1st Ave., is featuring landscapes by Polish-born Andrzej Skorut, who lives in Utah. Also works by Burley artist Robert Moore, who uses both hands to apply paint directly from tubes onto a canvas laid flat on his specially adapted ATV when painting en plein air.
The gallery is also introducing the sculpture of Jeffro Uitto, who utilizes reclaimed driftwood from the coastline of his native Washington to create monumental animal masterpieces of wild horses, soaring eagles and intricate furniture. All three artists will be at Gallery Walk.
HARVEY ART PROJECTS will have a new summer space at 340 Walnut Ave. The gallery is featuring a selection of large-scale paintings from Yoingu artists of northeast Arnheim Land and Buku Boards from Yirrkala.
LIPTON FINE ARTS, 411 Leadville Ave., is showcasing a big blowup piece of art that will put a smile on the face of anyone who ever doodled in class during a boring chemistry lecture. The work by Michael Scoggins is done on a 4-foot-tall canvas that looks like a notebook page with paper punches and lines. And it features an “all-American family,” including Mom with golf club in hand, a young boy bearing a tennis racket and another child with a skateboard. “It’s new art being done in New York now,” said Gallery Owner Gary Lipton.
Lipton is featuring other works from his personal collection, as well, including “Puppet Man” and other color lithograph works pencil signed by Alexander Calder, a new piece by Jim Dine he purchased from a London Gallery a few weeks earlier and works by Milton Avery.
SUN VALLEY CENTER FOR THE ARTS, 5th and Washington streets, is presenting “Night Watch,” an exhibition of contemporary images of the night sky. Among them: Vanessa Marsh’s images crafted through a process of drawing, painting and darkroom techniques.
FRIESEN GALLERY, 320 1st Ave. N., is displaying the works of husband-wife-team Dennis Evans and Nancy Mee, whose works evoke that of Giovanni Cassini, a 17th century Italian astronomer and mystic. The two will be present during Gallery Walk.
FREDERIC BOLOIX FINE ARTS, 351 Leadville Ave., will feature the work of Edouard Vuillard, Diego Rivera, Francoise Gilot and others, along with the musical stylings of jazz pianist Alan Pennay from 6 to 8 p.m.
BROSCHOFSKY GALLERIES, 360 East Ave., is showcasing “Western Pop” featuring Andy Warhol’s “Sitting Bull,” among other works, and Billy Schenck’s work exemplifying the myth of the hero.
WOOD RIVER FINE ARTS, 360 East Ave., is showing new landscapes by Colorado artist Jill Carver and Skip Whitcomb, a pastel and oil painter.
MOUNTAIN IMAGES GALLERY AND SADDLETREE GALLERY, 360 East Avenue, features the large-scale photographic landscapes by James Bourret, as well as photography highlighting local-scapes by Jerry Hadam and Diana Citret.
LEADVILLE ESPRESSO HOUSE, 411 N. Leadville Ave., is displaying printed monototypes, watercolors and miniature paintings featuring local landscapes and native wildlife by Tina Cole and Tisa McCombs.
MESH, now in new digs at 420 Fourth St. across from Atkinsons’ Market, features photography by Jeffrey Lubeck, Tessa Sheehan, Tory Taglio and Ed Cannady of the Sawtooth, White Cloud, Boulder and Smoky mountains.
SILVERCREEK ART, Sun Valley Road and Leadville Avenue, is exhibiting paintings by local artists Will Caldwell, along with pet works by Judy Pittman, mixed media by Christine Warjone and photographs by Sue Dumke , Marybeth Flower and Joe Bauwens.