Optical Enchantments is a two-person exhibition of recent paintings and works on paper by Sheri Klein and Russel Semerau. Drawing on the traditions of non-objective and abstract painting, the artists explore the emergences within the painting process and the complexities of color, form, composition, and content resulting in richly layered compositions.
Relationships are key to both artists’ works. In Semerau’s paintings, relationships between colors and shapes allow for an expansion of the experience of color and its interaction with the page, and the viewer. Color can be seen and ‘heard’ in different ways as one’s eyes travel over and across jewel-like surfaces. Klein’s paintings emphasize pictorial and symbolic relationships through the use of figure/ground, color, texture and pattern, unconventional perspectives and compositions, and architectural, figure, animal, and landscape motifs.
Both artists’ paintings serve as windows for and spaces for optical enchantment through the careful renderings of painting surfaces and imagery that invite viewers into a world of color, form, and imagination.