: The Cooley Gallery, 25 Lyme Street, is exhibiting new work by
contemporary artist Ralf Feyl (pronounced "file"). "Here in
Friendship" opened Thursday, May 6, on the twelfth anniversary of
the artist's first exhibition at The Cooley Gallery when he was
only 21 and a student at the Lyme Academy. The show will run
through June 9.
All of the paintings in this exhibition were painted in or around
the artist's hometown of Friendship, Maine. Feyl's work does not
easily fall into any classification. There are aspects of
Impressionism, Realism, Transcendentalism and Tonalism in his
work but these "isms" exclude the more meaningful aspects in his
art. His painting of a mantelpiece in an old cabin awash in
afternoon light or of an open pantry door in the fading summer
sun or a slash of evening red on a gray winter horizon refresh
the notion that looking is not always seeing and real
soul-enriching beauty can be captured in fleeting moments and in
deceptively mundane subjects.
"'Here in Friendship" is a varied and exciting body of work.
There's mastery in Ralf's work, a sense of harnessed intuition,
something akin to a Chinese brush painter who has mastered
characters," remarked Jeff Cooley, gallery owner. "The paintings
evoke Maine but they say more about a grounded life in times of
constant transition."
This show of more than 30 new landscape and interior paintings
depict familiar subjects: the edge of a wood, a doorway, a
pantry, a porch. They evoke feelings of home, serenity, solemnity
and transition.
For information, 860-434-8807 or cooleygallery.com.
