Bella Ormseth - “Human Nature”
Adam Alaniz “La Plush”
May 7th - May 30th 2020
Online show
Bella Ormseth “The Conversation”
Adam Alaniz “ Through The Woods”
Bella Ormseth returns to the gallery with a full show of her meticulously rendered portraits of anthropomorphic mushrooms and fungi embroiled in everyday human activities. These protagonists are accompanied by various pet-like insect companions. Her work contains echoes of the Dutch 17th century artists, mainly because Ormseth hails from the Netherlands originally herself and he felt a kindred-ship with and inspiration from them, studying a different painter in depth as she worked on a particular painting in this series. Her use of plant and fungi life as narrative characters comes from wanting to depict universal situations and feelings without them being buried under the visible outside factors of gender, race, age ect than human subjects would embody, while still being able to depict a variety of shapes and forms of her subjects as "everyday men". While the initial impression may be of a sort of whimsy when looking at Ormseth’s works, there lies a deeper and sometimes darker influence on each work. The painting “The Sick Child” depicts two mushrooms in a Pieta style pose- and was painted when the news cycle was dominated by the plight of migrant children being detained and suffering in cages along the US border. Additionally the painting contains further echoes of that as well as the hallmarks of Ormseth’s childhood hobbies. In general, she says of her work: "I wanted to feature these smaller, more ordinary beings, to show that they too have worth and beauty. By feeling some kind of recognition of oneself or emotional response to my paintings, I hope there is the realization of the interconnectedness of all life."
Adam Alaniz’s large scale canvases are portals into densely packed, roiling, and joyful scenes full of natural environments and strange spirits. Usually each painting has a dedicated brightly hued monochrome palette with a illuminated, glowy effect. Strange little rounded characters, from small animals or gentle nature spirit-like beings to smiley anthropomorphic rocks populate each scene, giving each cartoonish image a mythic aura as well as a portal into a deeper spiritual meaning imbued within our own world. Influenced by American landscape painters, Alaniz’s work is also informed by a love of the riotous carnivalesque works of Netherlandish painter Bruegel. Alaniz says:"He (Bruegel) was known for being a great observer of people and would draw people without them knowing. I kind of feel like that. I just happen to stumble upon quiet but great melodramas. Gods helping from above, bird people traveling miles to bury the head of their love one, monsters trying to find friends, soft rocks enduring through time, animals walking with death, people longing to be loved, and penguins courageously traveling forward to whatever lies in the future."
To view the show: Please click on a thumbnail to see each work. Information about each piece will appear when you hover over the image. On mobile, click the white dot in the bottom right corner to view the information. Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions or to get larger/detailed images of each piece.
