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KINGFIELD – The Stadler Gallery at 225 Main Street, Kingfield, is pleased to announce two exhibitions with works by Richard Reichenbach of Industry and Abby Shahn from Solon. They will be on view from August 7 through August 27 daily from noon to 4 pm and by appointment.
Reichenbach grew up with an avid interest in art which, however, as it happens so often, was accompanied by a proper dose of self doubt and lack in confidence in his ability to draw, paint, or sculpt. Although he began in a roundabout way with photography at the age of 18, it was not until 1990 that he took another baby step by enrolling in a drawing class followed by his discovery of painting a decade later and working with stone in 2006. When he left the U.S. Coast Guard the following year, Reichenbach was ready to start a life fully committed to his art.
In his show, entitled “A Simple Expression,” he uses both oil and acrylic paint. He prefers simple, almost primitive subjects expressed in bold colors. Almost juxtaposed is his approach to sculpting. He prefers alabaster because it is easy to sculpt, yet its delicate property requires extra care. His vessels express almost a sense of tenderness in the flow and rhythm as often observed in nature where “nothing is ever still and stone is not what we perceive it to be,” Reichenbach explains. However, both media show his love for simplicity as reflected in the exuberance of his paintings and the inward directed stillness of his vessels.
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People who are living in the Kingfield area or might have been visiting last summer will perhaps remember Shahn’s big, bold and beautiful exhibition in the large barn of the Stadler Gallery, and they might ask why Shahn is showing again this season.
To see Shahn’s large paintings in the barn had been planned long before this body of work finally was installed. However, by that time Shahn had already moved far ahead and did no longer feel comfortable with large one-woman shows. When showing alone, she only can identify with it, if it remains in a small format. Therefore the Stadler Gallery extended to Shahn the offer, to show again this summer in a small space where she feels she belongs at this stage of explorations into new territory. “Explorations,” therefore, is the title of Shahn’s exhibition. On view will be egg tempera paintings on paper.
Shahn, born into a family of artists, grew up in rural New Jersey. After having spent some time in the West she settled in New York City in the 1960s. She has been living in Maine since 1970. Although Shahn attended several prestigious art schools for varying lengths of time, she feels that her greatest education came from her living in New York City during an amazingly fecund period of art history, and from her fellow artists at that time.
There will be a reception for the artists on Saturday, August 7, 2-4 pm. Please view www.stadlergallery.com for more information.
