Tomorrow night, an exhibition of new paintings by Sante Fe artist Kevin Sloan opens at Naples' Gardner Colby Gallery. It is a delicious collection of meticulously-wrought works you simply will not find in any other southwest Florida gallery or art festival taking place in this part of the country this season.
On his canvases, Sloan blends wildlife, still life and landscape painting into a single, tightly unified composition. Each work is vivid and richly drawn. “Mr. Sloan’s distinctive work,” observes Gardner Colby Gallery, “is characterized by its opulent, lush and often tropical landscape. His allegorical paintings are both real and imagined, and invite viewers to use their own intellect and awareness to create personal stories relating to each captivating painting.”
It is this intellectual content that explains why many of Sloan’s collectors acquire more than one of his paintings. "It's a wonderful compliment when someone buys more than one of my paintings," says Sloan with heartfelt humility. "Besides their intellectual appeal, I think that what delights a lot of people is the touch of humor I build into each work."
Sloan works carefully, applying several glazes of acrylic to his gesso ground in order to achieve a very realistic end result. His current series of work ranges from just 9 x 12 inches to as large as 36 x 72 inches, but whether on a small, medium or large scale support, Sloan's paintings exert a powerful presence, with images so vivid, so three-dimensional, they seem to jump off the canvas and into the room.
The latter attribute is all the more remarkable because Sloan doesn’t always work with actual subjects. He takes hundreds of photographs and uses the internet, which he credits as a boon for artists because it gives them a rich and virtually unlimited source of images to use as subjects.
“My cast includes everything from things that live in the sea to things that fly in the air, like insects,” Sloan points out in the same vein as a novelist describing his characters in a story. The analogy is not accidental. All of Sloan’s work contains a narrative element, and in addition to the usual suspects, like the sea turtles and whooping cranes that headlined Sloan’s 2011 Cabinet of Curiosities exhibition, toucans, fish and even an ape inhabit the landscapes that serve as backdrop in his 2012 Peaceable Kingdom series.
In sum, Sloan’s paintings hold a spirit of wonder and reverence for the natural world, with no sign of the disenchanted cynicism so common in the world today. Infused with meaning and symbolism, Kevin’s storytelling technique invites the viewer to use their own imagination and awareness to create personal stories relating to each captivating painting.
But seeing is believing. The Peaceable Kingdom exhibit opens tomorrow night at Gardner Colby Gallery with a reception for the artist from 5:30-7:30 p.m. The exhibit will run through February 21.
Kindly R.S.V.P. for the opening reception by calling 239-403-7787 or email the gallery at art@gardnercolbygallery.com.
Gardner Colby Gallery is located at 386 Broad Avenue South in Naples on the boulevard that is affectionately known as "Gallery Row."
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