Beautiful Inside and Out

IMG_0769Beautiful Inside and Out
Inner beauty, as we know, is the most important thing (and that’s even true of art galleries — inside being where the art is). But as a landscaper, Scott Chapman has always had a vision for his gallery that included an inviting exterior. With the advent of spring, we have urns with geraniums flanking the entrance and sculptural heron among the rhododendron. And Scottie isn’t done yet. “I’m hoping to get some larger sculpture or fountain to add a little life to the outside,” he says. “Something that makes people want to stop.”

lillies-750‘The Many Sides of Kevin King’

When Kevin King agreed to have a one-person show at Chapman Art Gallery, he joked that visitors might walk in and think it was a group exhibition. And as the actual show will make clear, the North Falmouth artist is indeed an eclectic talent. “The Many Sides of Kevin King,” a lively overview of his approaches, mediums and subjects over some two decades, will run from May 20 through June 4.

  • The opening reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday, May 20.
  • Also in conjunction with the exhibition, the artist will give a talk at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 25, at the gallery.

One of King’s trademarks is his rather frequent use of ash in place of more conventional pigments. Mixing it with oil painting medium and resin, he has used cremated fish to paint fish, book ash to paint books, rope ash to paint rope and ash from Ground Zero to paint the American flag. With a painting of daylilies, King painted the entire picture in gray with lily ash before deciding the blossoms themselves demanded to be a true-to-life orange.

King’s reverence for nature is also evident in his “Bio-Logic Leaf” series, where large-as-life leaves float in luminous space, their crinkly, curving forms rendered with sculptural beauty. “Geo-Logic #2,” a somewhat stylized Middle Eastern landscape of arid mountains and ravines, was painted with Red Sea sediment. “Three Stones” features a trio of smooth, blue-green pebbles painted with almost trompe-l’oeil clarity against a glowing field of yellow and red.

Among King’s most recent works is a reproduction of “La Bella Principessa” (“The Beautiful Princess”), a drawing some experts have attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. “It just captivated me,” King says. “He did it in colored chalk and ink, and I’m doing it in oil. You learn so much from copying what someone else has done.” On the other hand, he wasn’t timid about introducing his own touch to the Renaissance portrait. “I added a butterfly on the girl’s braid,” he says.

CLICK HERE FOR A SELECTION OF KEVIN KING’S FISH PAINTINGS
“You can either buy clothes
or you can buy pictures.“
GERTRUDE STEIN
Author and Art Collector

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