Opening reception for David Nakabayashi and Allison Svoboda
OCTOBER 9th 2021, 6-9 pm
Regular gallery hours:
open every day except Tuesday and Wednesday, noon to 5 pm, or by appointment.
David Nakabayashi
“When I come to Three Oaks, Michigan, to paint Plein air, it’s just about me and the landscape. There are few distractions, eating, sleeping, sometimes I go swimming in the lake. But every day is about painting.
It’s not a landscape I know well. I like looking at cornfields. I like the way the light shines on soybean leaves and the way tree lines cascade into the distance. I wander through forests and marshes with the dragonflies, deer and mosquitoes and watch the sunlight change through the day. So my paintings here are very green, all the greens, so many I can’t possibly paint them all.
And then there is Lake Michigan who’s color is undecipherable, a blue-green shimmer of unattainable light. I don’t think it can be painted, despite all my attempts. And there is always the sky, like skies everywhere: unfathomable.
So yes, painting this land or any landscape is a kind of quest. All I can do is be present. And it is also about work, hard, satisfying work that I’m gratified to be able to do in this life.”
David Nakabayashi, Three Oaks, MI – September 2021
Allison Svoboda
“Organic patterns and forms found in nature have an instinctive draw. The theory of fractal geometry; infinite layers of self-similar shapes repeated in every living thing, hold an endless fascination for me. Plants, feathers, skeletons; this enormous energy in nature influences my work.
The same way a plant grows following the path of least resistance, the quick gestures and simplicity of working with ink allows the law of least resistance to prevail as the ink finds its path across the paper. Ink gives a more spontaneous experience as I allow the ink to move where it flows naturally.
With this process, I work intuitively through thousands of brushstrokes creating hundreds of small paintings. I then collate the work, tearing out images that work together. When I find compositions that intrigue me, I then delve into the longer process of collage, taking the time to digest the image. The patterns or lines of the work often have multiple inferences. The flow of a tree reaching to the sun has the same movement as a river reaching toward the ocean. Water droplets bind together and become fluid just as arctic ice builds up and melts apart. The dichotomy in our natural world of destruction and growth, light and dark, fear and wonder is very important to my work.” Allison Svoboda
