‘Trialogue I’ featured at Saugerties gallery
An exhibition titled “Trialogue I: Jackson Dembar, Ruth Edwy & Suzanne Rees” is currently on display at Cross Contemporary Art, 81 Partition St., Saugerties.
It can be argued that abstract painting is the most representational of all painting expressions, because the subject matter is not a response to the outside world, but literally the reality of paint itself. Dembar, Edwy and Rees explore the dynamism and reality of paint in this group show.
The three area artists have long lived and worked in New York state, and their commitment to painting has largely been outside mainstream art marketplaces. For decades, these three have been committed to the goal of painting for its own sake. The result is work that is about a pure and personal vision expressed in color, form and light.
Although he holds a master of business administration degree from Wharton, Dembar soon found that success in business paled in comparison to the experience of painting. Dembar’s decades as an artist covers an exhaustive range of materials united by a common theme of light, color, form, surface and passion.
Edwy has been painting in her studio in the Catskills since 1972. Her atmospheric surfaces are often punctuated by geometric edges, creating a spatial tension between what is permanent and impermanent.
Rees approaches painting as a sculptor in that the illusion of material space is her starting point. She allows the marks to determine the forms, and each painting becomes a study of density and atmosphere, of weight and balance.
The exhibition continues through Feb. 28.
Cross Contemporary Arts is open Thursdays through Mondays from noon to 6 p.m., Tuesdays and Wednesdays by appointment or chance.
Call Jen Dragon, the gallery’s director, at (845) 3999751 for more information.