Carolyn Reed Barritt | Michael Komala

Carolyn Reed Barritt | Michael Komala

Exhibits

Invoking Narratives

Carolyn Reed Barritt | Michael Komala Sept 7th – Oct 3rd

My artworks consider character and place, invoking narratives and identities which often effect each other. In my newest abstracted landscapes I utilize a feeling of constricted space to create confined, intimate views of imagined and otherworldly lands, seas and skies with a combination of calligraphic marks, organic shapes and color. My sculptures combine disparate, yet familiar elements to create new, off-balance realities and characters formed from a combination of man-made and natural elements. For the Bejeweled sculptures I fuse ornamentation with modified segments of tree trunks and branches, creating new creature-like hybrids. On the surface, these hybrids are enticing and beautiful, evoking sparkling sea creatures and otherworldly entities, but upon deeper reflection they represent our commodification of the natural world, and a visual articulation of flora in dystopian flux by the integration of bright colors and unnatural, growth-like embellishments onto organic objects. – Carolyn Reed Barritt

I try to incorporate things from my daily life into my work. Over time, shape and color repetitions are established and develop meaning. This rhythm is meant to make work that seems distantly familiar for the viewer, inviting them in to explore further. – Michael Komala

Hope Olson 7/6- 8/15

Exhibits

Within Arms Reach

Hope Olson is an acrylic painter based in Holland, Michigan. Her art celebrates home, habitat, and the places people cherish. The compositions and colors of her abstracted still life and landscape paintings are inspired by a long-held affection for interior decorating, historic architecture, old country villages, and early 20th century art. Hope particularly borrows from the sensibilities of the Fauvist art movement, which emphasizes strong colors and marks that magnify mood and compel curiosity.  She earned a B.S. in Interior Design from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois, and also focused her coursework in studio art and marketing. Her paintings are part of various private collections and have been regionally exhibited alongside the work of Eugene Delacroix, Fairfield Porter, Lois Dodd, Robert De Niro Sr., and others.