LUSH

BENTONVILLE, AR — Midnight Gallery is thrilled to host our very first exhibition which includes a group of twenty-one dedicated local artists. Our goal is to provide quality shows for our vibrant and robust local art community.

LUSH breathes. The inhale is a reflection, a reabsorption of a vibrant summer cradled by the density of the Ozarks. The exhale is a release, a farewell, a reminder that nature is both abundant and fleeting, both vast and microscopic.

Our local artists practice in a wide variety of mediums, including painting, drawing, photography, ceramics, and textiles. LUSH invites contemplation on how different artistic approaches reflect and interpret natural phenomena.

The Ozarkian South — Thick With Resources

These resources are both visual and physical. Amelia Peters’ painting palette is deeply connected to her experiences living in the South. By exploring our home state, Daniel Coston develops beautiful paintings from seemingly hidden places. Natural materials exhumed from southern woodlands are used by Beth Bobbitt on a two-dimensional surface. Molly Martin’s process-driven approach is inspired by her childhood spent playing outside in the Ozarks, creating visual ecosystems through playful fabric collages. Abigail Henthorne engages with topics of endangered species and nature’s fragility, incorporating various weaving, tufting, and knot-tying techniques to generate various pile heights and distinct features.

Vast and Microscopic

Intricate layers seen in Neil Callander’s paintings reveal themselves upon inspection. Interplays of flatness and depth with recognizable yet elusive forms invoke a sense of ambiguity. Large-scale drawings from Kylie Robinson juxtapose vastness with microscopic intricacy. Forrest Frederick’s images create visual portals that teeter between the familiar and the surreal.

Patterns in nature blur boundaries between mathematical precision and organic spontaneity. Milan Jilka’s dynamic compositions reconfigure natural forms into abstract patterns, evoking vitality and depth. Macy Burr’s compositions explore the intersection of music and visual patterns, offering rhythmic perspectives on nature. Utilizing memory or sources from experiences, Karlena Fletcher and Laura Ramirez employ repetitive mark-making to create tantalizing visuals. Benjamin Dobbs’ meticulous stippling has a meditative quality, highlighting the intersection of detailed precision and natural forms.

Our Bodies in Nature

Human qualities emerge as if growing from the Earth in Camilla Crittenden’s inked portraits. Allyssa Dezaldivar and Melissa Wise-Miklos have a close, bodily relationship between the material and process of wheel-throwing, and Jaede Bayala’s cyanotypes reflect intimate moments with the environment. This coincides with Ava Obert’s ceramic human forms that interact with Earthly ground. Layered, rhythmic images from Kathryn Wilson observe the just-too-distant cosmos beyond her own sliver of the Ozarks.

Kathleen Barta’s watercolor paintings are sourced from life drawings; they are loose and organized, intentional and chaotic, and shapes of color seemingly vibrate from saturation. Christian Schultz’s hybrid approach melds physical and digital tools to explore themes of self-perception and virtual worlds. Both reveal unique avenues of our natural world through abstraction.

Together these artists offer a multifaceted view of nature and its intricacies, inviting viewers to engage with its many layers and perspectives. LUSH: Group Exhibition runs from 9/27 to 12/30 at Midnight Gallery, with an opening reception on Saturday 9/28 from 1-3PM.