Ellen Dieter Returns to the Swift

Ellen Dieter Returns to the Swift
The Bay Park Paintings give a beautiful taste of home

Monday, January 13, 2014

A Swift Look Back Show Surprises and Delights Viewers and Collectors.

In the past five years the Swift has hosted a brilliant and varied collection of talented artists in solo shows. For this exceptional retrospective, they are all brought together under one roof for the first time. I may be biased as a curator, but I can't remember a more beautiful show.

Ellen Dieter's Jazz Series Welcomes Visitors and Warms the Walls

Artist Anna Zappoli, the first artist to have a solo show at the Martha Pace Swift Gallery, returns with a powerful and amazing new body of oil portraits in the Against the Sun series. 

Zappoli's Portraits Against the Sun Illuminate.

Widely collected artist James Watts who last graced our halls with nearly a ton of sculpture   brought a series of magnificently crafted frieze-like sculptures. Full of the artist's private system and symbology, they engage and raise questions, as in his Society Blocks, White, Neutral, Black. (Pictured below) 


Artist Larry Caveney, who had a show sponsored by the institute in our space before the Gallery was launched is showing his dynamic acrylic on canvas portraits of iconic cultural figures, both real and fictional. 



Philip Petrie and Diane O'Connor have brought their finely tuned abstract works back to grace our walls.

Petrie surprises in this show with the emergence of figure in the oil on canvas  work Mansion
Diane O'Connor's beautifully layered mixed media compositions are a striking  presence

Another favorite of the figure, artist Shahla Dorafshan, who often paints from life, presented a series of gorgeous canvases, including this standing nude, Fall is Here 


There are many more vibrant works to see at the Swift, and special activities on First Fridays, so  be sure to come out soon, and make yourself a part of it. 

Wes Chester- Curator