Naples' Gardner Colby Gallery represents roughly four dozen artists whose works span a wide range of genres and mediums. On Thursday, March 14, Kim English, Stan Moeller, Lesley Rich and Robin Cheers will represent the gallery in its final show of the season, A Slice of Life.
Even the mundane becomes magical when interpreted by the likes of English, Moeller, Rich and Cheers. For example, English focuses on people cheerfully performing everyday tasks, yet his palette and motifs have a Tahitian flavor, a' la Gauguin. A Kim English oil painting is immediately identifiable because of his distinctive, signature use of light and chiaroscuro and depictions of a slice of everyday life.
Whether painting Italian lanscapes or exploring figurative themes, gifted impressionist Stan Moeller produces works that are kinetic, dynamic, enigmatic and alluring. Wife and sometimes model Tammy Moeller characterizes her husband’s figurative paintings as tantamount to “stealing a little bit of the model’s soul.” Less concerned with technical reality, Moeller chooses instead to use spontaneous brushwork and vibrant color to capture the way light moves around a figure or an object in his oil paintings.
Rich is truer to Impressionism than most painters today who call themselves impressionists. Her new work not only studies the effects of bright sunlight on color, but the treatment of bodies in motion en plein aire. Lesley's richly textured oil paintings are a reflection of her personality: vibrant, spontaneous, energetic and sometimes, irreverent. They are pleasurable and easy to live with.
Robin Cheers' gift is her ability to bring a magnifying glass to life's simple moments. She paints quickly, "alla prima", with light and gesture as her inspirations. "My paintings are like a visual diary of my personal experiences," Cheers reveals. "In the summer, I turn to paintings of the beach, children at play, farm markets, horse shows and swimming holes. Other seasons find me in the city, frequenting coffee houses and museums, and gathering material and inspiration from each stop along the way.”
Gardner Colby Gallery has two locations straddling Gallery Row. Gardner Colby I is located on the south side of the street at 386 Broad Avenue South, next to Premier Sotheby’s International Realty. It is readily identified both by that mango orange canopy supported by two slender white columns and by metal sculptor Tim Brown’s 12-foot tall Red Ring Juggler, which seems to be greeting guests with a festive aspect as they enter the gallery.
Gardner Colby Gallery II is located across the street at 365 Broad Avenue South. It abuts Marianne Friedland Gallery, Gallery Row’s bastion of modern art, and is just steps west of Galerie du Soleil with its potted bougainvillea and white Marton Varo sculpture which greets motorists who enter the Third Street South gallery district via Gallery Row.
The gallery can be reached at 239-403-7787 or online at http//:www.gardnercolbygallery.com.
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