By Patricia Wadsley
ANDES — Now through December 21st, Andes’ Hawk and Hive Gallery is presenting its “Winter Salon,” a rotating showcase of art work which highlight the vast range of techniques and expression and varieties of subject matter of art shown upstate today.
As you step into the Main Street gallery for this year’s salon, you can’t help but be visually arrested by two large works, flanking each side of the entrance. Erika Ehrmann’s Contemplation, is a large format indigo blue and white and painted photograph of a woman, her face completely erased and blanked out her hands placed delicately around this erasure, an image left to the interpretation of the viewer.
“I started these images by looking at old photos of my family and realizing I did not really know who they were,” says Ehrmann. “I did not know their story so what remains is any story you want to tell.”
Ehrmann adds that she was also responding to images disseminated through Instagram. “On Instagram stories, there is no room for interpretation. there is a forced narrative,” she says. “I wanted to do the reverse, let the viewer decide what he or she was seeing.”
On the opposite wall is Scott Ackerman’s piece, “Like Cats in a Grass” . Although Ackermann describes his approach as “primitive” this large work is a controlled and refined tapestry of nature, a vibrant garden populated by his trademark wild beasts.
Further into the gallery are two works also inspired by old photographs. For decades, Anne Crowley has been collecting antique postcards from Catskills thrift stores and envisioning and re-envisioning the lives of the people captured on film.
“I found a photograph that I couldn’t stop thinking about,” Crowley states. It shows a line of young women ready to participate in a swim. I decided to reimagine it, changing the race of the women, and their physical surroundngs. I did it by making mistakes—erasing and repainting, and scraping and reapplying oil paint over and over again, until I got it right. Finally, it seemed to me to have the dreamlike quality I wanted. It is in fact, my dream.”
Jeff Quinn’s pieces are called “Portals”, a quartet of images whose port-hole like frames beckon the viewer to peer through to larger worlds of land and seascapes, stripped down, yet sinuously compelling. Patrice Lorenz’ “Crows” series depict the birds she calls “her familiars,” birds which inhabit the fields and trees around her house. “They were once linked to witchcraft,” says Lorenz. “But they are now seen as companions bridging the human and natural worlds.”
Hawk and Hive’s curator/owner Jayne Parker has her own compelling backstory. After a dual career of “high dependency” nursing and art studies and photography in her native UK, she came to the United States and worked as a gallerist and owner of several notable east coast galleries. Seeking a respite from city life, Parker fell in love with Andes. “It was the landscape, the flora and fauna of the Western Catskills, that we first fell in love with. “ she says. “We liked the small town vibe of Andes and the proliferation of independent shops and businesses in the area. “ Needing work, and knowing what she could do best, she opened Hawk and Hive in 2021, and this new venue, and Parker’s devotion to searching out and nurturing new and established artists has helped to revitalize art throughout the area. As for the Winter Salon, her vision is the unifying factor in this wide ranging show.
“I’m drawn to people who can show me the world in new and unexpected ways…” she says. “(For artists) who weave complex, layered stories into their work, This for me is what unites these very different artists, and provides some cohesion to this eclectic exhibition.”
There are more stories to be told about this Hawk and Hive show; it’s a rotating show; works are taken off the wall almost as soon as they are purchased. Parker is constantly adding new artists and new works, giving more immediacy to this project.
Parker intends to have a Spring salon too.
Hawk and Hive’s “Winter Salon” 61 Main Street. Andes, New York through December 21.
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