Yellowstone Thermal Zone 13 by Pete McCutchen. Courtesy of Touchstone Gallery..
Opening Reception: Friday, September 9 from 6pm to 8:30pm
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Pete McCutchen and Judy Giuliani Artist Talk: Sunday, September 25 at 2pm
GALLERY A
Beyond Face Value Touchstone member artists explore the possibilities in the “face” of things, literally and figuratively. Portraits, masks, and things regarded neutrally, highly or with distant emerge in serious portrayals or tongue-in-cheek works. Artists articulate a multitude of views in sculpture, hand-pulled prints, collage, drawing, painting, and photography.
Fiore Nineteen by Judy Giuliani. Courtesy of Touchstone Gallery.GALLERY B
Tutto sui Fiori by Judy Giuliani
“I hate flowers – I paint them because they’re cheaper than models and they don’t move,” Georgia O’Keeffe. Judy Giuliani’s love for working with color and painting abstract flowers shows well in the new series of her acrylic paintings. Colors, any and all colors, are Judy’s passion.
Using abstracted flowers as a central theme Ms. Giuliani pushes the boundaries of color combinations. Judy believes that carefully integrated color is the key to pushing the boundaries of thought into an emotional response to her paintings.
Sigmund Freud said, “Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions or conflicts.”
Judy has taken this idea and turned it upside down. Flowers are a very neutral subject but in her hands they take on emotions and at times appear as though they are struggling.
Emotion and intellect are the two forces at play in her work.
Ms. Giuliani has had work published in Incite 2: Color Passions, North Light Books, Blue Ash, OH and Artists Magazine.
Yellowstone Thermal Zone 13 by Pete McCutchen. Courtesy of Touchstone Gallery.GALLERY C
The Thermal Zone by Pete McCutchen
Pete McCutchen transports his viewers to what one could imagine to be the surface of an alien world: Yellowstone’s Thermal Zone, beautiful, surreal, and deadly.
Yellowstone National Park sits atop an enormous volcano, a volcano that last erupted a mere 650,000 years ago. The source of that volcano: an underground pool of magma fifty miles long and twelve miles wide. Scientists tell us that it lacks energy for another eruption, and we fervently hope they are right. But there is still enough subterranean energy to force its way to the surface, creating geysers, steam vents, and, most especially, hot springs.
The hottest water is a clear beautiful blue, inviting on a hot day. But you better not try to take a dip; the water is laced with sulfur and close to boiling. As it runs off, the water cools, and it is the home of different strains of cyanobacteria, each different hue denoting a slightly different organism.
Now at Touchstone, Pete McCutchen turns his lens to this surreal landscape. Isolating different elements of the thermal zone, McCutchen creates abstract compositions of lush color and etherial beauty. His works seem alien, and yet they are tantalizingly real, with a serenity that belies the violence of the energies that create The Thermal Zone.
McCutchen’s work has appeared in more than 150 juried shows, including the recent and highly acclaimed Art In Politics show at Touchstone. He has also received numerous international photography awards in a wide variety of competitions, including the Prix de la Photographie Paris, the Neutral Density Awards, the Spider Awards, the Monochrome Awards, the International Color Awards, and the International Photography Awards. He has received particular recognition for his landscape and abstract photography, and with this collection he combines these two genres, creating abstract landscapes that must be viewed in person.
Gallery Hours:
- Wednesday – Friday: 12pm to 6pm
- Saturday – Sunday: 12pm to 5pm
Touchstone Gallery is located at 901 New York Ave. NW. Please see the gallery’s website www.touchstonegallery.com for additional information.
