Call and Response: Paintings by Evelyn Pye at Gallery A3 in July
Evelyn Pye, The Winter Sun Came in To Warm Itself by the Fire, oil on panel, 2013. Photo: Gallery A3
Source: Gallery A3
The paintings of Evelyn Pye will be on exhibit at Gallery A3, 28 Amity Street 1D in Amherst in July. The exhibit opened on July 3 and will run through Saturday August 2. Gallery hours are Thursday–Sunday, 2:00–7:00 p.m. There will be a free, in-person art forum on Thursday July 17 at 7:30 p.m at the gallery.
About the Exhibit
In two series of related oil paintings on wood panel that together form CALL & RESPONSE, Evelyn Pye explores human dimensions of time, space, and scale through a profusion of indoor plant life punctuated by a discrete infusion of domestic detail.
The exhibit has roots in a series of small-scale works dating from 2013. All of these panels are in the range of 9 X 12” to 12 X 14”. And these intimately-scaled paintings contain a similarly intimate content, depicting plants that had originally belonged to and been tended by the artist’s mother. One, a Peace Lily, even goes back a generation earlier, to her grandmother’s funeral. “I began to paint my mother’s plants, including some paintings of her seated in my father’s easy chair surrounded by her plants,” says Pye. The small panels became an ensemble, exhibited together and entitled The Winter Sun Came in To Warm Itself by the Fire.
Pye revisits those paintings this year, with CALL & RESPONSE. But a different time frame also shifts the scale. “I have painted new works that are scaled-up versions of the originals, approximately twice the original size. I have also painted the plants anew at this larger scale,” she explains. Now, Pye tends the plants herself, pulling them out on the deck in summer and back into the house in the fall. And that Peace Lily, originally from her grandmother’s funeral? It is now, she reports, “unbelievably heavy,” the hardest plant to move each season with its flourishing foliage.
Art Forum
How can the static medium of painting convey the passage of Time? How is memory represented in a painting? And what about loss or remembrance? How do our conversations with those who are departed change over time? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in an Art Forum held in-person at Gallery A3 at 7:30 pm on July 17.
This Art for Community program is supported in part by grants from the Amherst Cultural Council and the Pelham Cultural Council, local agencies, which are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. The in-person event at Gallery A3 is free and open to the public.
About Gallery A3
Gallery A3 is a contemporary, fine art gallery located in the Cinema courtyard in downtown Amherst, Massachusetts. Members of the artist-run cooperative include painters, sculptors, photographers, printmakers, and mixed media artists.
Gallery A3 was founded in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. A group of local artists believed art to be essential to the health and healing of a community and began the gallery as a place to share ideas and artistic support. Since that time, the gallery has been home to over 60 artists and is now celebrating 23 years of monthly shows with openings and forums, all free and open to the public, and an annual juried show that supports regional artists.