Featuring Stephen Bron, Johnny Defeo, Daniel Heidkamp, Allison Schulnik, Ellen Siebers, Lina Tharsing, and Stephen Truax in dialog with Ann Craven

 

A fawn in a field looking back, surrounded by wildflowers, is what’s depicted in this very intimate Ann Craven painting from 1998.  When one wants to see one of these magical little creatures you can’t seem to find one if your life depended on it, but driving around or walking, randomly these fawns seem to pop up and you have to be ready. Chance. How do we train our eyes for chance? Ann has been doing this skillfully for over a decade with her portraits of animals, flowers, and moons. Working both in plein air and from source material Ann has built a unique world in which both practices are approached from a very direct mark making, wet on wet leaving her viewers with an almost milky surface to rest in. With her repetition and strategic scale jumps of singular images these works simultaneously talk to 80’s/90’s conceptualism and plein air painting, capturing the beauty of the everyday. Partly based in Maine and New York City, Ann walks the walk of the great American plein air painter. 

 

These portraits of animals, flowers, and moons have had a very direct influence on a younger generation. For this exhibition I have compiled a handful of artists that fall in conversation with Ann. 

 

Ann Craven’s portraits of animals, flowers, and moons have had a very direct influence on a younger generation of painters . This exhibition is the first of a series that painter Aaron Michael Skolnick is curating around responses to iconic works from his partner’s Bill Arning’s personal collection assembled in the 80s and 90s.

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Bill Arning Exhibitions / Hudson Valley

17 Broad Street

Kinderhook NY 12106

Parking Always Available

Friday, Saturday, Sunday: 12:00–5:00pm

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