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Alyssa Monks Creates Spirit Songs with Vaseline and More
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Friday, July 6, 2018
 

BY KAREN BOSSICK

Alyssa Monks knows how to turn a portrait into a work of intrigue.

The Brooklyn artist flips background and foreground using semi-transparent filters of water and steam.

Named the 16th most influential women artist alive today by GraphicDesign Degree Hub, Monks is recognized at home and abroad for her pieces obscured by water, steam and other filters.

And she will be on hand to discuss her new exhibition titled “Spirit Songs” during tonight’s Gallery Walk from 5 to 8 p.m. She also will speak at a free Artist’s Chat at 10 a.m. Saturday, July 7, at Gail Severn Gallery, 400 First Avenue North in Ketchum.

“We have a lovely selection of her paintings of trees and woods,” said Gail Severn. “Her works are so completely unique. They’re not strictly portraits nor are they strictly landscapes. She applies an interest psychological filter to her work. And she’s a magnificent painter in her use of light and other techniques.”

It began, simply enough, with bathtub paintings.

As Monks watched how water changed the color and form of the thick brushstrokes of oil paint that she had laid down, she tried other filters, including Vaseline, steamy glass shower doors and even shower curtains.

“We saw her work a couple years ago and began interacting with her and her New York gallery, which is  called  Forum,” said Gail Severn. “She’s gained a lot of notoriety—the New York Times recently ran a wonderful five-page article about her and her work, and her work has been featured on the TV series ‘The Americans.’ ”

Gail Severn Gallery is also featuring the work of three other artists, at least two of whom will be here for night’s Gallery Walk and Saturday’s Artist’s Chat.

One is photographer Laura McPhee, who has a new exhibition titled “The Walls of the World.”

McPhee takes large-scale landscapes and portraits of people who live and work in the west with her 8-by-10 Deardorff camera. This particular exhibition features locations in Idaho and surrounding areas where she is chronicling visual stories about geologic time and human time and interactions.

For instance, she’s trained her camera on a serpentine river that has cut deep incision in the land over the ages. And she’s trained it on the Black Rock Desert where miners slashed open the earth to reveal its ruddy interior.

Ed Musante, who also will be present tonight and Saturday, collects the soul of the solitary animal, most often painting birds in exquisite detail on cigar boxes and cigar box lids.

And Squeak Carnwath incorporates her strong political beliefs into her art work, putting song lyrics and titles, silhouettes and words in her lush colored oil paintings titled “Words and Songs.” Carnwath has received numerous awards, as well as artist fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship and others.

Here are some other highlights of tonight’s Gallery Walk, which will feature liquid refreshment at many of the galleries:

  • Friesen Gallery, Sun Valley Road and First Avenue, will pay homage to summertime with Phranc’s new exhibition “The Great Outdoors.”

    Phranc who has been visiting the Sun Valley area since age 10 and will be here during Gallery Walk, was inspired by vintage Sun Valley vacation photographs, stories, branding and by the experiences of friends who regularly summer in the area to create the new works.

    Phranc, who has become known as “the cardboard cobbler,” has created a lifejacket made of Kraft paper, paint, cardboard and thread and a black and white striped swimsuit out of Kraft paper and gouache.

    “These paper sculptures are intended to evoke the delight of a hole-in-one, a dip in the pool, fishing in an icy stream or hiking a rugged rail,” said Phranc.

  • Kneeland Gallery is showcasing works by Douglas Aagard, Linda St. Clair, and Neal Philpott in a colorful exhibition titled “Colors of the Wind.” The artists will be on hand during Gallery Walk.

    Santa Fe artist Linda St. Clair’s paintings of animals, from barnyard animals to wild animals, start with a journey to find and photograph her subject matter. They end in a single energetic session out of her studio in Santa Fe.

    St. Clair has studied polar bears at the North Pole, lions in Africa and grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park, endowing them with her perception of animal attitudes and personalities such as love, strength, serenity and family values.

    Realist painter Neal Philpott seeks to capture the ephemeral nature of the Northwest as a record keeper of a specific time and place in his paintings of a farmhouse or fence.

    And Douglas Aagard draws on the Utah landscape as inspiration for his scenes of mountain pines and farmland, all displayed with a vibrant color palette.

  • Gilman Contemporary, 661 Sun Valley Road, is showcasing Jane Maxwell’s exhibition of mixed media paintings and lighted sculpture titled “Front Row.” The new series celebrates fashion and power, as silhouetted figures clad in outfits built from torn-down billboard papers are seen striding with confidence, style and strength.

    The gallery is also showing works by Sky Pape, two-time recipient of the prestigious Pollack-Krasner grant. Pape’s works, titled “Passing Through,” feature ink intertwining with highly pigmented geometric shapes created with Flashe vinyl base paints and acrylic paint applied with handmade brushes, palm fronds and other found objects.

  • The Environmental Resource Center, 471 Washington Ave., will display a set of Jineen Griffith’s oil paintings, while serving complimentary beverages and discussing upcoming programs.

    Griffith, a Ketchum resident, specializes in painting nature scenes of Idaho. An outdoor enthusiast, she says the outdoors comprises the essence of herself, of where she lives and how she spends her leisure time.

    “Everything I do stems from the desire to experience being outside in nature, whether skiing, kayaking, climbing mountains or simply sleeping under the stars,” she said. “Painting has allowed me another way of seeing the natural world—the patterns, reflections, color and ever-changing light.”

  • Leadville Espresso House, 411 N. Leadville Ave., will be showing Abby Grosvenor’s “New Works on Paper” during Gallery Walk.
  • Harvey Arts Projects, 659 Sun Valley Road, is hosting a new exhibit from the Papunya Tula artists in the Australian outback called “Pintupi.” The artists from the Western Desert region of Australia are renowned for their bold, geometric mark-making derived from the traditional body and sand painting associated with ceremony and dreamtime creation stories.
  • Mountain Images Gallery, at 360 East Avenue in The Courtyard, is showcasing James Bourret’s fine photography of desert-scapes and scenes from the Pacific Northwest. His work will be augmented by the furniture of artist Jeffrey Mann and craft beer, along with wine.
  • Broschofsky Galleries, 360 East Avenue in The Courtyard, is showcasing various artists’ take on the American West from a historical and contemporary point of view. Among the artists: Theodore Villa, who paints very detailed watercolors portraying Native American images and 20th century photographer Edward S. Curtis, who took historic photos of a disappearing West.
  • Wood River Fine Arts, 360 East Avenue in The Courtyard, is showing works by several Prix de West artists, including Russell Case, Michal Lynch and Christopher Blossom.
  • MESH Gallery, 4th St. and Leadville Avenue, is showing some amazing photos taken by Claire Porter and Jeffrey Lubeck titled “Wild Mustangs of Idaho.” The horses, who roam near Challis, acted at times as if they knew they were posing for a camera, resulting in photos in which they seemed to line up just right.
  • Frederic Boloix Fine Arts, 4th and Leadville Avenue in The Galleria, is showcasing works by Francoise Gilot, author of several best-selling books, including “Life with Picasso.”
  • Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Fifth and Washington streets, is showcasing the work of Charles E. Burchfield, a rather mystical 20th century artist, and three contemporary artists who were influenced by him: Hayley Barker, Anna Fidler and Katy Stone.

    Be sure to check out the three-dimensional works on paper Fidler created during a residency at the Sun Valley Center for the Art’s Ezra Pound house. See if you can pick out the late journalist Roberta McKercher entertaining beat poet Alan Ginsberg in that Hailey home.

  • Tranquility Independent Wellness Center, behind Topnotch in the Walnut Avenue Mall on Sun Valley Road, will feature 28 pieces of encaustic works by Ketchum artist Suzanne Hazlett.

    Hazlett, who is represented by Gail Severn Gallery, works in the ancient technique of encaustic painting, a labor intensive method that involves the use of Italian marble, wax and fir tree crystals blended with earth-based pigments.

    She manipulates the layers of material that she creates with these substances by scraping and adding materials, heating them with a blow torch and a high-temperature heat gun. The result: as many as 30 different shades of color on a complex surface.

  • Stone Art Gallery, in the Walnut Avenue Mall, features sculptures and hand-carved tables and other pieces created from marble, stone and precious gems. Owner and artist Jeff Homchickalso has collected some spectacular crystal geodes.

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