Another Tale Revisited – TDP GALLERY

Reality informs and inspires an imaginary world as Kathi Packer explores shape, texture, color, and the overall beauty of the Serengeti’s landscape. Her bold brushstrokes and unconventional palette, inspired by African textiles, create visual patterns allowing for endless interpretations. Focusing on acacia trees and termite mounds, Packer creates layered, organic abstractions that suggest a dangerous beauty. Packer states, “In bloom, this tree presents a dazzle of white cotton flowers. Yet, hidden amongst thick clusters of white are 4-inch black thorns…and the enormous castle-like termite mounds rise twice my height; like much in this environment, danger is hidden to the uninformed eye.”

Nature Interpreted – WEST & TSB GALLERIES

Aspasia Anos’ monotypes incorporate reflective elements of the landscape, including transient and liminal waterscapes. Subject and process become inseparable. Rather than document what has been, these photographic collages and mixed-media monotypes give shape to change and are shaped by it in turn. Anos states, “My interests lie in the dynamic interplay between residue and mark, evidence and response, memory remade by memory: clarity arrived through chance and complication.”

Rosemary Cotnoir employs a unique approach to capturing the abstract components and presence of the world around her. Inspired by indigenous art and Japanese woodblock prints, these intricate paintings are built using layers of pattern and texture. Hatch lines and clustered dots whimsically transform forests, coastlines, and aerial landscapes into a visual tapestry.

Inspired by her travels, Jessica Fallis’s paintings echo the presence and sublime nature of old-growth forests. Large trees and foliage dominate the canvas, immersing the viewer in the dreamlike scenery of Muir Woods. The color and light of the West Coast play an important role, highlighting the overlooked remnants in the forest. Fallis states, “​​These places symbolize the interconnectedness of the forest, and the cyclical way that new life grows out of the old.”

Donna Namnoum is a ceramist who creates abstracted sculptural vessels and forms inspired by plants. Her work blends utilitarian function with fantasy. Covered jars, wall pockets, vases, and sculptural forms combine in an alien-like garden that is in a perpetual state of growth and decay. Incorporating unusual surfaces, textures, and colors. Donna states, “My goal is that uncertainty and experimentation be visible in the final work while conjuring familiar forms; some easily recognizable and others vague.”

Alan Neider’s mixed-media Exotic Plant Life series blends his interests in painting, gardening, and textiles. Neider aims to create work that is direct and impactful while capturing the essence of nature. Incorporating sewn fabric into each painting highlights bold colors and a variety of edges and shapes, enhancing the visual interest.

Inspired by her garden, Peggy Reeves’s botanical paintings and drawings serve as a metaphor for the human condition. The colorful, psychedelic ferns contort playfully, as if in conversation with one another. Reeves states, “I see plant life as a forceful, powerful agent and the titles of the series are meant to negate the normally held concept of a sweet or passive nature and delicate existence that the subject of flowers in art brings to mind.”

Heather Scofield’s paintings explore the movement, light, and emotional rhythm of the natural world seen through the land, skies, trees, and water. She is drawn to moments of transformation, renewal, and balance. Through layered brushwork and expressive color, Scofield conveys the atmosphere and energy of place, and the sense of connection that nature continually offers.

Artmaking is how Matt Wood interacts with the world around him; his thoughts, experiences, reactions, and hopes are mediated through his canvas or his lens. Wood’s unique approach to painting is especially evident through his varied textures, palette, and use of detail. All of which emphasize the impermanence of these untouched landscapes.