KENT—Water, with all its varying imagery, has always stimulated artists’ creative instincts. It is also the subject of two exhibits this summer at Carol Corey Fine Art, 6 North Main Street.
“Many of the long-time artists in the group I represent use water as an ongoing theme in their work,” says Corey, who founded her Kent gallery in 2020 after the death of her friend and business partner, Renato Danese, with whom she ran the Chelsea gallery Danese/Corey for more than two decades. “It was an obvious choice to begin with them as the foundation and use it as an opportunity to expand and discover new artists.”
The first show, “By the Sea,” is currently on display through Sunday, July 21and is a group exhibition featuring work by 11 artists whose work is related to the sea and the seashore. The show ranges from the otherworldly small-scale paintings of coastal Maine by Dozier Bell to the sunbaked abstract paintings of Clay Johnson to the intricate yet flowing charcoals of Rick Shaefer.
Corey continues the theme with a solo show from Matthias Meyer, one of the artists featured in “By the Sea.” “Lakes of Light,” on view from Saturday, July 27 through Sunday, Sept. 1, showcases Meyer’s delicate balance between realism and abstraction. “Matthias’ work is a wonderful marriage between medium and subject matter,” says Corey. “His paintings can be read as abstract or as a multidimensional perspective of water at the surface, underneath it, or in its reflections.”
The German-born artist, who studied with Gerhard Richter, uses a technique that emulates the properties of water itself. Diluted oil paints run and fall across the canvas, investing the medium with the transparency and ephemeral qualities of watercolor. The result is rich, magical, dreamlike environments filled with the perception of water, light, and color.
The gallery is open Thursday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
