Painter Dean Reynolds likens himself to a magician. “The work is about the act of painting a window to a world of fantasy, of the surreal, of inner experience,” he writes in his artist statement. “The images hint to me to make them into a drawing or painting and then I work to make them into reality.” On May 2 at Parlor Gallery in Asbury Park, New Jersey, Reynolds will present a new series of surreal, candy-colored paintings for his latest solo show. The female protagonists in his work explore sunshine-yellow landscapes that seem to belong to another dimension. We follow these goddess-like characters into scenes rife with incongruous imagery and symbolism.
Despite what we may sometimes think, our memories are extremely faulty, open to influence from new information, and seen through the lens of our current emotions. This is the concept used by Kyle Stewart in his latest body of work, which explores the change in his memories of rural life after moving to Toronto. His solo show “Between Worlds” debuts at Parlor Gallery in Asbury Park, New Jersey on September 13.
Christine Wu’s (covered here) art draws emotional tension from its soft, tonal palette and sketchy layers. She guides the viewer’s eye with detailed points of interest and spots of colored light. Fundamentally, warm light might imply comfort, cheerful emotions, while cool hues imply something more mysterious. Wu intentionally manipulates the light and color of a scene to achieve a variety of effects. Her next series of paintings is inspired by morning light. She will exhibit these with Kyle Stewart, Hannah Yata, and Melissa Haslam at Parlor Gallery, opening September 13th. We visited her new studio in Los Angeles for a preview.