Jane Booth and Fred Nelson Archive
April 2 – May 22, 2021
The Opening Reception took place Friday, April 2.
JANE BOOTH: The Pond in the Field
FRED NELSON: Straddling the Line
JANE BOOTH: The Pond in the Field
I start each morning in the studio, sitting on a sofa looking out big glass doors to the southeast, overlooking a field of mixed grasses with a small spring fed pond in the center. The pond is a constant, but different every day. Sometimes the wind blows across, rippling the water. When it’s still, the water is reflective. It freezes, sparkles in the sun and thaws. Eagles fly over nearly every winter day. In March a cacophony of migrating blackbirds come in droves, migrating, looking for food, landing on the cattails that surround the pond. Ducks land in droves in the evenings. Many deer come across nearly always west to east, a hawk family hunts every day. The field greens up, frogs start singing, an occasional coyote passes by. In late summer the prairie grasses rise and begin to turn, sunflowers bloom, winds shift, migrations begin again.
In this way, all of my work emerges from the pond in the field.
-Jane Booth, 2021
Continue reading Booth’s bio here.
FRED NELSON: Straddling the Line
My paintings have always been about landscape. Over the years the work has changed, both in content and imagery. One series of paintings leads to another. A gradual refinement from vast panoramas to the specific. For the past six years my paintings have been based on gardens. Gardens are the “tended to” aspects of landscape. The space, the color, shape, texture and space are key elements in landscape and in my work.
The primary influence of my work comes from a philosophy which suggests the primacy of a personal response and the interpretation rather than the copy of nature. The paintings straddle the line between abstraction and realism, what is seen and what is imagined. This sensibility, both aesthetically and philosophically, expressed in this duality of approaches is an interpretive, personal response to the visual world.
-Fred Nelson, 2021
Continue reading Nelson’s bio here.
These exhibitions will be open April 2 – May 22, 2021
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11-5 p.m.
For past exhibitions, please visit our archive.