KENT, Conn. —Kenise Barnes Fine Art, 7 Fulling Lane, will continue its current exhibition of paintings by Amanda Acker, Sally Maca, and Melanie Parke, “Inside for the Winter,” through Jan. 26.
Amanda Acker tries to make the things she depicts look like those things, not so much in a photographic sense, but in the way it is seen and evoked. She is a self-taught artist whose work has been widely exhibited in Michigan and in Connecticut. She lives and works in Michigan.
Pastoral and bucolic still life settings emerge from Melanie Parke’s life. Each painting evokes the artist’s fondness for domestic setting and mementos of friendship. Parke reconstructs familiar interiors and filters them through the ideology of memory.
Her subjects often center on flowers, birds, decorative objects, gardens and intimate interior settings with an intent of creating safe places for pleasure.
The artist’s work is exhibited widely and is in collections throughout the United States.
Sally Maca explores the daily changes in atmosphere and light and their transformational effect on familiar streetscapes and landscapes. The artist is dedicated to capturing the moment when the mundane becomes transcendent, a transition often created by the heaviness of a passing storm, the glow of a streetlamp or an otherworldly sunset.
Maca’s subjects are mostly local landscapes, inspiration gleaned from daily walks or a glance out her front door. The artist explores the soft geometry in the angles of tree branches, or the horizon line and the hard-edged, manmade lines of roads and utility wires; these disparate elements are woven into lyrical compositions.
The small scale of the paintings is central to the work; not only does the size invite close inspection but it evokes an intimacy with the painting.
Normal opening hours are Thursday – Saturday 11-5:30 p.m., Sunday noon-4:00 and by appointment. However, the gallery will be closed Dec. 26. It will close at 3 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 4, and remain closed Jan. 5.
