Delicate Power: The Delicacy and Complexity of Egg Tempera

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DELICATE POWER:
Egg Tempera by Koo Schadler, Carol Mothner, and Mavis Smith
J. Cacciola GalleryW, Bernardsville, NJ
Dates: March 24 – April 28, 2016
Opening reception: Friday, April 1st 6-8pm

Working in egg tempera is not for the timid hand, not for the artistic faint of heart. The delicacy and complexity of the medium requires exquisite skill, and the temperament to master that skill. It is also a medium with “lineage,” a long line of master practitioners stretching back to Egypt, through the Classical and Medieval worlds, and brought to its highest expression during the Renaissance. These are tough acts to follow.
The egg tempera works of Koo Schadler, Carol Mothner, and Mavis Smith, opening at
J Cacciola GalleryW, Bernardsville, NJ, on March 24th continues this tradition of excellence. Each artist is a distinguished practitioner of the medium, each a master at unearthing egg tempera’s delicate power, its rich color and refinement of line.
Though Schadler, Mothner, and Smith share a love for, and mastery of, egg tempera, each artist nevertheless has her own visual “voice.” For Koo Schadler, questioning art history and the malleability of time come together in works which present the viewer with delicate conundrums: the spirit of the Renaissance masters seems to hover within Schadler portraits, but the element of time calls that assumption into question. The poses and mood say “Renaissance,” but the short-sleeved dress or red T-shirt and newsboy cap say otherwise. We are thus pulled in and out of art history, in and out of time.
Through an exploration of egg tempera’s range of mood and palette, Carol Mothner asks us to question the relationship of the possible to the not-so-possible. Mothner’s juxtaposition of the familiar, such as a seamstress’s mannequin, with a gridded document that seems to be both background and foreground, behind the mannequin and on its surface, re-orients the world as we believe it to be. She asks us to believe something else.
Mavis Smith, on the other hand, deals with the world in our modern moment. Her portraits are clearly contemporary, the colors the familiar colors of our contemporary experience. In Smith’s work, it is the medium itself which plays with us. The delicacy of egg tempera’s line, the soft richness of its color, defies the modern world’s insistent pulse, giving Smith’s figures a slightly mystical narrative feel.
J Cacciola GalleryW’s exhibition, DELICATE POWER: Egg Tempera by Koo Schadler, Carol Mothner, and Mavis Smith, thus brings three sensibilities to bear on a medium which demands much of its practitioners. But the skill here is only part of the joy of this show. The rest is where art’s joy is always found: in the images.

For images and additional information, contact: contact John Cacciola, Director at info@jcacciolagallery.com or call 212.462.4646