Summer

Nancy Toomey Fine Art is pleased to announce a group show entitled "Summer" with works by Claire Burbridge, Gilles Teboul, Lisa Bartleson, Audrey Tulimiero Welch, Casper Brindle, Miya Ando, Andy Harper, and Gregg Renfrow, on view from July 13 to August 18, 2018. The gallery is located inside San Francisco's Minnesota Street Project, 1275 Minnesota Street. The public is invited to the artist reception on Saturday, August 4, from 5pm to 7pm.

The season of summer has often provided artists with material for exceptional and spellbindingly beautiful works of art. Summer is the stuff of dreams, when the days seem to last forever--a time of excitement and an enhanced enjoyment of life. The very nature of how we perceive this season is rooted in childhood memory, of a time that never seems to last long enough, as wonderful things never do. The artists included in this exhibition have long been concerned with the representation of light, frequently evoking the shifts of perception that nature can provide.

All the featured works and artists in this exhibition express the concept of this topic in their own individual styles: a delicate rendering of poured color from Paris-based Gilles Teboul (new to the gallery) that could be the first unfolding of a summer rose, a possible reference to the popsicle hues of a surfboard from Los Angeles-based Casper Brindle, and the nuanced clouds of a summer sky in Miya Ando's evocative cloudscape. Audrey Tulimiero Welch approaches her practice with a more textural, painterly, and layered construct, while Claire Burbridge and Andy Harper (Harper also new to the gallery) both depict rich tapestries of flora, some of it observed and some imagined. Abstract patterns emerge in their meticulously rendered creations, while the work of Lisa Bartleson consists of repetitive, meditative mark making that in its reductive form and color becomes infused with light. Bay area based Gregg Renfrow, in his signature process of pouring polymer and pigment on cast acrylic, creates organic layers of overlapping color that appear to be glowing from within.

The subtle nuances of each of these artists' work allow us a moment of dreamlike tranquility, a time to contemplate and experience our own joyful response to nature in this most laid back of seasons. Though much of the work featured in this exhibition utilizes deep resonant color and tone, the message is one that we can all value in these uncertain times--to pause, to reflect, and to embrace the beauty of our external environment. The right kind of day in summer is balm for the battered psyche, making us believe that maybe, all can be right with the world.