OCHI is pleased to present Sonnets, a solo exhibition of new paintings by New York-based artist Andy Mister. This is Mister’s debut solo presentation at the gallery. Sonnets will be on view at OCHI, located at 119 Lewis Street in Ketchum, Idaho from July 13 through August 17, 2024. Andy Mister’s paintings of cut flowers in water-filled vessels merge the ephemerality of traditional drawing techniques with the physicality of painting. Mister’s paintings are intimate, both small in stature and also offering insight into the personal nature of the work—Mister recently moved with his wife and their two young children to a town near the Susquehanna River in upstate New York, a change of pace from city life. Immersed in the outdoors, Mister watches his children navigate the natural world with curiosity and joy. While previous paintings relied on found imagery, the paintings in Sonnets are all based on real flower arrangements made by all members of the Mister family. The artist’s kids choose flowers at the local farmer’s market and place them around the house in whatever vessel they can find—a jam jar used for turpentine, a glass left behind, or a small vase bought secondhand. Nodding to the late …
James Chronister: And we are green…
OCHI is pleased to present And we are green, greener than the hill, where flowers grow and the sun shines still, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Montana-based artist James Chronister. This marks Chronister’s debut solo presentation with the gallery. The exhibition will be on view at OCHI, located at 119 Lewis Street in Ketchum, Idaho from July 13 through August 17, 2024. And we are green, greener than the hill, where flowers grow and the sun shines still features James Chronister’s deeply intricate, monochromatic landscape paintings. Composing straight on images of dense winter forests, close ups of individual leaves, and aerial images of flora, Chronister begins his process by photographing the environment surrounding his home in Missoula, Montana. After digitally distorting contrast, focus, and tones, Chronister moves from computer to canvas where minuscule individual marks reveal scrupulous technical application. Onto a white or carefully hued off-white background, Chronister meticulously recreates source photographs by repeatedly applying, shaping, and erasing black oil paint. Precise dry brushing and stippling techniques achieve texture, depth, and refinements of form. As painter Jake Longstreth remarks, “Chronister achieves a startling range of tonality and depth. Viewed up-close, the paintings are constructed by a series of …
James Chronister: Artist Walkthrough and Reception
OCHI is pleased to present ‘And we are green, greener than the hill, where flowers grow and the sun shines still,’ a solo exhibition of new paintings by Montana-based artist James Chronister. This marks Chronister’s debut solo presentation with the gallery. The exhibition will be on view at OCHI, located at 119 Lewis Street in Ketchum, Idaho from July 13 through August 17, 2024. An Artist’s Reception will be held on Saturday, July 13th from 5:00 – 7:00 PM MDT. And we are green, greener than the hill, where flowers grow and the sun shines still features James Chronister’s deeply intricate, monochromatic landscape paintings. Composing straight on images of dense winter forests, close ups of individual leaves, and aerial images of flora, Chronister begins his process by photographing the environment surrounding his home in Missoula, Montana. After digitally distorting contrast, focus, and tones, Chronister moves from computer to canvas where minuscule individual marks reveal scrupulous technical application. Onto a white or carefully hued off-white background, Chronister meticulously recreates source photographs by repeatedly applying, shaping, and erasing black oil paint. Precise dry brushing and stippling techniques achieve texture, depth, and refinements of form. As painter Jake Longstreth remarks, “Chronister achieves a …
Gallery Walk: Flavia’s Junquiera – The Absurd and the Grace
Brazilian artist Flávia Junquiera’s poetic photographs pay homage to monumental architecture and the ephemeral essence of childhood. Dreamlike and playful, Junquiera creates carefully staged site-specific installations and then captures them on film. Imagine grand theaters filled with balloons, a lone and riderless carousel horse intruding upon an ornate library, balloons and bubbles littering the grounds and floating above Rio de Janeiro’s Parque Lage. Infused with a sense of wonder, Junquiera captures a nostalgic vision that dwells in the magical realm of childhood. Each photograph not only commemorates an installation but also celebrates the lightness and brightness of the unexpected.
Flavia Junquiera: The Absurd and the Grace
Brazilian artist Flávia Junquiera crafts poetic photographs that beautifully blend monumental architecture with the fleeting nature of childhood. Her meticulously staged, site-specific compositions are both whimsical and evocative. Picture grand theaters adorned with balloons, a solitary carousel horse amidst an ornate library, and bubbles drifting over Rio de Janeiro’s Parque Lage. Infused with innocence and joy, Junquiera creates a fantastical universe that resonates with childhood memories. Each photograph not only captures an installation but also celebrates the lightness and brightness of the unexpected.
Gallery Walk: Language of the Birds, Whimsical Still Life Paintings by Jason Wheatley
Jason Wheatley’s first solo exhibition, “Language of the Birds”, features surreal and dreamlike still life paintings that explore our relationship to fantastical ideas and recognizable imagery. Embracing the illustrative style of John James Audubon’s famed avion paintings, Wheatley deploys realist and absurdist sensibilities to each still life. Filled with metaphor and riddles, each canvas demonstrates a contemporary sense of whimsey, wit and folly. “I dabble in the absurd and make it accessible and beautiful at the same time. I want people to feel like they have stumbled onto a riddle. The don’t have to figure it out, just know that something is taking place.” -Jason Wheatley Artist in Attendance.
Silent Spines: Reception
OCHI is pleased to present Silent Spines, a two-person exhibition of new work by Los Angeles-based artists Rives Granade & Vincent Pocsik. This is Granade’s fifth presentation with the gallery and Pocsik’s first. Silent Spines will be on view at OCHI, located at 119 Lewis Street in Ketchum, Idaho through July 6, 2024. We will host a reception on June 22nd, 2024 from 5:00 – 7:00 PM. Silent Spines pairs Rives Granade’s abstract paintings and Vincent Pocsik’s anthropomorphic lamp sculptures to complement one another as they push conventional boundaries in their respective mediums – Granade in an exploration of consciousness and Pocsik via his innovative approach to form. Both artists take an imaginative approach to their work to present a corporeal language of unusual curves, shapes, and textures. Rives Granade’s resolute expression of the interior world pushes back against modernist isolation; his paintings exist as repositories for thoughts, reminders, schedules, and snippets of biography and bibliography. Much like the ancient paintings in the Lascaux Caves and the graffiti etched into the Temple of Poseidon, Granade employs a variety of techniques to document time, layering, echoing, and affirming his own presence in the world. Embracing visions, thoughts, yearnings, recollections, and reveries—a …
Thai Mainhard: Off the Ground
In Thai Mainhard’s exhibition “Off the Ground” vibrant, frenetic colors are collaged, painted, and drawn onto canvases that show a sense of composition and experience. Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and based in Los Angeles, California, Mainhard’s personal exploration of place seeps into each of her paintings. In her newest body of work Mainhard embraces tangible objects through an exploration of the composed still life. Expressively rendered maximalist spaces are filled with swatches of bright color, checkered table clothes, and patterned vases of loosely rendered botanicals offer a lingering invitation. These composed paintings are the physical embodiment of the artists internal world and life experience, harnessing the tension between chaos and order, figurative composition, and expressive abstraction.
STRATA: JEFF JUHLIN
Juhlin has spent decades studying western landscapes, specifically the Great Basin and the high arid desert of the Kaiparowits Plateau in Southern Utah. His mixed media works consist of layers of paper, ink, paint and wax. “Although I don’t consider myself a landscape painter, I seek to reflect a sense of stillness, vast space and the visual history of time evident in the western landscape. My paintings allude to the raw typography and the amazing colors and light from where I live. In this environment, time often reveals itself in the form of rock strata that is both built up and worn away by the elements in a continuous process. Similarly in my work, I reveal layers of translucent strata composed of pigmented & cold wax, oil paint, paper and other media that are built up and worn away in the storied layers of the creative process.” Please join us for Gallery Walk night on Friday, 2/16, from 5:00-7:30PM to celebrate the show.
February Exhibitions at Gail Severn Gallery
Judith Kindler: Leaving Traces on Venice’s Storied Walls Judith Kindler transports viewers by reconfiguring visions of textured surfaces and graffitied walls of Venice, Italy, on to her own canvas. Through a mixed media process of layering original photography and painting, Kindler makes her mark on the city of which she draws so much inspiration. “When I go to Venice, I feel like it is home, familiar like, perhaps I lived there. Walking the streets and traveling in the canals in such a beautiful environment with the old architecture juxtaposed with the new art fills me with immense joy.” As a meditation on memory, Kindler initiates a dialog between her own iconography and the preexisting traces of history and time. Berkeley Hoerr: Ketchum in Color Ketchum, Idaho has long been a subject and source of inspiration for artists, authors, and poets. Painter, Berkeley Hoerr approaches the landscape from her own unique perspective with an emphasis on bright and bold color. Hoerr illustrates icons of a beloved ski town through charming depictions of favorited local spots, snap shots of winter activities, and creative views of Bald Mountain. Whether you are a long-time resident of the Wood River Valley or just visiting, you …