Seascapes by Simon Gaon and Susan Sugar
March 17-April 30, 2005
Simon Gaon’s canvases, large in scale and swirling with color, evoke a sense of romantic grandeur. Water, roiled by storms or glinting with reflected light, is often a theme: Manhattan’s rivers and bridges, sunlight dappled on the bay at Shelter Island, and, most spectacularly, tempest-tossed seas shimmering in the glow of a sunset or fire.
Simon Gaon, Fire at Sea, 2001
For this artist, paint is a highly tactile medium, almost three-dimensional in the juicy palpability of his brush strokes. He is, in fact, also a sculptor, and several of his stone figures are on view here alongside the canvases. He lives and paints on the Upper West Side, overlooking the Hudson, and in a studio near the bay on Shelter Island. His work has been exhibited at the Peter Findlay Gallery in New York and at the Nabi’s former space in Sag Harbor, and is especially popular in Europe, with one-man shows recently staged in Germany and Holland.
Susan Sugar, in contrast, works in small formats and subtle shades. Living part of each year on Key West, Florida, she chronicles—sometimes in oils, usually in watercolor—the interplay of water and sky along the island’s shore as it changes from dawn to dusk or calm to storm.
Susan Sugar, Swirling Clouds at Dawn, 2004
Her graceful renderings of clouds in formation may recall the art of the dance, a career she practiced before before turning to painting. Her work has been seen at galleries in New York, Key West, and Martha’s Vineyard and at the Corcoran Museum in Washington. This is her second show at the Nabi.
Susan Sugar, Approaching Storm, 2004
Three Views of the Installation