Contemporary landscape and abstract paintings to be on view

Skidmore's Department of Art and Art History will present the New American Sublime: Landscape and Abstraction by Contemporary Painters in Schick Art Gallery from Feb. 29 to April 6, 2008. An opening reception will take place from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 29, in the gallery. Paul Sattler, acting chair of the department and associate professor of art at the College, will give a gallery talk about the exhibit at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 18.

The eight painters featured in the exhibition are Gregory Amenoff, Jake Berthot, Bernard Chaet, Laurel Hughes, Bill Jensen, John Lees, Joan Snyder, and John Walker. The Nielsen Gallery in Boston lent multiple works for the exhibition. Additional paintings are on loan from Alpha Gallery, Boston, and the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College. Sattler conceived this exhibition, which was co-curated by his Skidmore colleagues Peter Stake, associate professor of art, and David Miller, professor of art and director of the Schick Art Gallery.

In an exhibition essay titled "Enthusiasm and Exultation," Sattler describes "the engaging spirit that employs labor, subject, tradition, style and the painted object." He cites John Turner as a possible influence for Bernard Chaet, Laurel Hughes, and John Lees. Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, and Albert Pinkham Ryder are Luminists whose vision may have informed Jake Berthot and Bill Jensen. As Gregory Amenoff and Joan Snyder are mentioned, so too are Richard Pousette-Dart and Arthur Dove "...promoting an impulse to experience form, pattern and color as portals..." John Walker is said to "invite the viewer by means of a heaving and exhilarating challenge." Sattler concludes that this exhibition, taken as a whole, produces "experiences that are transcendental, haunting and sublime." His complete essay is available in an exhibition brochure.

The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and weekends 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.