NEWFANE — Matt Peake, Barbara Baker-Bury, and Scott Morgan will exhibit their works at Crowell Art Gallery throughout November.
An opening reception is set for Saturday, Nov. 14, at 1 p.m. Crowell Gallery is at Moore Free Library, 23 West St.
Peake launched his professional career in 1982 as a family physician in rural Vermont. After nearly 25 years he left his practice to pursue a full-time career in art - in dance and the visual arts.
Initially, he says, his paintings were realistic renderings of the nude. His strong interest in movement has taken him in the directions of both the creation of mobiles and the composing and displaying of his works on a rotational frame, the RoFrame. Using that device, he says, has made his artwork “more abstracted, but accessible: unconventional, yet recognizable.”
To encourage this interaction, Peake has adds a special event to the exhibit and opening reception. This latest painting, Overlook #25, has not been named. Viewers are asked to turn the painting and, with each turn, suggest a title. In return each participant will receive a card/reproduction of the painting. Peake says that he'll choose a name for his painting from among all the titles submitted that day.
Baker-Bury launched her painting career at Crowell Gallery in 2006 with a solo show. Long interested in the role of the unconscious in her work, Baker-Bury says she hopes “to silence the mind and paint spontaneously, following the lead of the emerging painting on the canvas.”
A successful abstract is often interesting from several different directions, upside down or sideways. Turning a painting you soon lose track of a right way up. Using Peake's RoFrame invention, the viewer is invited to rotate the painting to experience it sideways, upside down, around and around to see what is to be found from different perspectives.
Artist and musician Scott Morgan, originally from New York, is an extensive traveler whose experiences have influenced his abstract expressionism with a deep sense of style and an energetic color palette.
“There is an intriguing melodic rhythm and movement to the sculptural aspect of his work,” event organizers say.