Opening Reception Thursday May 14,  6 - 8 pm

DC Moore Gallery is pleased to present Solace, an exhibition exploring meditative, introspective approaches to making art. These artists create empathetic relationships between the artwork and the viewer, inviting the viewer to impart their own associations and experiences into the work. Whether through expressive use of color, symbolism, rendering of light, or handling of paint, these works create a space of solace for both the artist and the viewer.

For many artists, natural forms are symbols of both ephemeral beauty and resilience. Mary Frank, Robert Kushner, and Jimmy Wright focus on individual flowers, exploring their emotive power and vulnerability. For David Driskell, pine trees were an especially potent personal symbol of grace and endurance. Carrie Gundersdorf and Katia Santibañez both harness spiral patterns found in shells and other natural forms, reconciling repetition and change, harmony and chaos in their compositions.

Other works, such as those by Eric Aho, Charles Burchfield, and Jane Wilson, evoke the sensation of being in the landscape, experiences of air and atmosphere as well as feelings of calm, joy, or wonder. Some artists refer to the landscape while tapping into the power of dreams to express individual and collective feelings, such as Duane Michals and Darren Waterston. George Tooker’s Sleepers are suspended in a meditative trance, neither asleep nor awake. Reconciling with grief and loss, Tooker sought to represent a transcendental state of consciousness and a communion with a universal spirit. 

In a constantly changing and turbulent world, these works offer a moment to pause and recenter. Solace invites viewers to look quietly and closely, to enter in a shared space of refuge.