WE’VE ALL GONE TO LOOK FOR AMERICA
Kenise Barnes Fine Art is pleased to present a landscape painting show featuring the artists David Konigsberg, Thomas Sarrantonio, Francis Sills, and Sophie Treppendahl.
The exhibition title is taken from the well-loved Simon and Garfunkel ballad recounting a bus trip across America, and the hours spent looking out the window as the landscapes slide by. The song and the exhibition share a sentiment of longing and searching for meaning. In the wake of the past year, I think we are yearning for the America that we remember in our mind’s eye. “Michigan seem like a dream to me now…”
David Konigsberg’s new work focuses on the places where nature and humanity meet, conflict with, and accommodate one another. Konigsberg’s works bridge the divide between art and real life in semi-narrative paintings that are both objective and conceptual. His work occupies a netherworld of image and memory in his very personal narratives, which are not meant to be deciphered but experienced as emotional possibilities. In this exhibition, Konigsberg is debuting a monumental landscape triptych of an orchard in evening light that measures 60 x 120 inches.
Konigsberg’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States and has been featured in the New York Times, Chronogram, Wall Street International, and Brooklyn Journal, as well as numerous art and culture blogs. David Konigsberg lives and works in Hudson, New York.
The paintings of Thomas Sarrantonio seek to mediate between realms of external perception and internal reflection. They present themselves as meditations on nature and self. Choosing humble, often overlooked subject matter such as the grasses at the edge of a field, he attempts to translate the dynamic processes of nature into the stasis of physical matter on a painted surface. Small oil paintings are produced directly from nature while large paintings are studio productions that utilize memory, experience, imagination and conceptual ideas to negotiate the terrain of contemporary painting. The paintings are offered to the viewer as templates to provoke active participation in the process of seeing and quiet contemplation of the act of consciousness.
Thomas Sarrantonio’s paintings have been exhibited widely and he is the recipient of numerous honors including a Pollock-Krasner Award and a Visiting Artist Residency in Normandy, France. Sarrantonio holds degrees in Biology and English. He studied Painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA where his teachers included Will Barnet and Sidney Goodman. He lives and works in Rosendale, NY.
Francis Sills’ paintings are grounded in the perceptual-based, realist tradition. The artist works directly from observation in nature. In dealing with the intricacies and challenges of working from observation and the sustained experience of intense, visual scrutiny, the artist comes to understand and know his world. Sills’ paintings are dense and subtle, revealing specific nuances of color, light, and form. Often, the underlying geometry and architecture of the composition is apparent in the application of paint, the artist’s analytic thinking about structure and his methodology still evident in the finished work. Sills’ most recent series of paintings and drawings depict the evolving landscape of his home in South Carolina. The paintings of his pond with the raft and rowboat pulled onto the bank at once personal and universal, an observed world of nature, home and family.
Francis Sills earned an MFA from Parsons School of Design, New York, NY and a BFA from Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States. The artist lives and works in South Carolina.
Sophie Treppendahl makes the kind of lush paintings that oil paint was made for; generous strokes of buttery paint saturated with color and sensuously applied. She is a young painter who approaches her work with confident exuberance. Treppendahl’s subjects are sometimes interiors with lilting shadows and autobiographical mementos. Other works highlight the gravitational pull that water has on the artist – whether it be a lake, a river, or ocean, the artist’s water paintings are always filled with the spirit of freedom that being in and on the water brings.
Sophie Treppendahl earned BA Cum Laude in Painting and Printmaking from College of Charleston, Charleston, SC. Her work has been exhibited widely in the United Sates and can be found in private and corporate collections throughout the United States including Fidelity Investments, Boston, MA. Treppendahl lives and work in Chicago, IL.
Please contact Kenise Barnes, director: Kenise@kbfa.com with inquires or to arrange a preview of the exhibition.
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