Art Shows NYC - Alexandra Tyng

Home and House, 2007

ABOVE AND BEYOND

8 JANUARY - 31 JANUARY 2009

Great and Little Duck 2007, oil on linen, 34 x 48”

The Fischbach Gallery is pleased to present Above and Beyond, recent work by Alexandra Tyng. The exhibition opens 8 January and is on view through 31 January 2009.

The land formations and architecture of coastal Maine are joyfully explored in the new work of artist Alexandra Tyng with her characteristic interplay of light and shadow, subtlety and intensity.

“The surfaces breathe with life, and are rich with small strokes of color,” notes Suzette McAvoy, former chief curator of the Farnsworth Museum. “The brushwork is inquisitive, actively leading the eye throughout the image, yet also deliberate in defining textures and shaping forms. Light and atmosphere are rendered with specificity and are critical to animating the compositions, each plays an active role in conveying the ‘sense of place’ that is central to the work.”

Tyng believes that true understanding of a subject takes place in the context of its environment. Her recent paintings of Maine represent a hierarchy of perspectives, from intimate views of specific locations to aerial perspectives of Maine’s convoluted coast. “To truly understand a place, I try to experience it up close and from within, then I gradually move further and further away, encompassing it within increasingly larger settings. From the air, you see the landscape open out in front of you, below you and on all sides. There’s an extraordinary sense of perspective.”

Ultimately, though, there remains something intangible in the process of showing and revealing. Tyng’s landscapes not only describe what we see, but also acknowledge that which is beyond the power of physical description, beyond understanding. This exhibit includes large aerial views, ground-level views with wide-angled perspectives, and small paintings that focus on details of buildings, rocks, trees and water.

Born in Rome, Italy in 1954, Alexandra Tyng earned a B.A. from Harvard-Radcliffe University. She resides in the Philadelphia area.  This is her sixth exhibition at Fischbach Gallery.  An Exhibition Catalog with color reproductions will accompany this exhibition.