Cheryl Molnar's Landscape Collages

The Hamlet

Cheryl Molnar is a collage and multimedia artist, and in fact what I first thought were sharp-edged paintings are carefully composed and assembled landscapes. Unfortunately, my camera is adding the 70s yellowish cast to these photographs (and no, this is not an Instagram filter, just a bad photo). I liked how her landscapes captured the quintessence of places, even as the collage pieces fractured the space into geometric, almost abstract designs.

Detail of collage

The edges show just a bit at the end, and you can also see the transparency of the layers here.

Industrial Park

Voila--something not yellowed...! But I'll spare you and just show you some of the lovely images you can also find on her website: 

New Highway

American Dream

Park Homes

Amy Talluto at Black and White Gallery

White Pine, Oil on Canvas

I popped into Amy Talluto's show Huldra at Black and White Gallery this weekend, and her forest landscapes had me back to reminiscing about the trees, particularly the white birches, of Sweden. Not that there were any white birches in the show--rather the artist caught the light and the density of the forest while adding something evocative and mysterious. Perhaps a little like the childhood wonder I felt being alone in a forest where trolls might lurk among the mushrooms. In an odd coincidence, the title of the show comes from an old Swedish tale--a Huldra being a witch who lures men deep into the forest

Huldra, Oil on Canvas

Her surfaces alternate between being dense with intricate color, like the trunk of this tree appearing like the inside of oyster shells, and light-filled space like green background beyond.

Burn, 2006

Up at Black and Gallery through May 15 (and especially the bigger paintings like the one below appear much better there than in this small reproduction).

Sunset, Oil on canvas

Today's Forecast

Autumn Moon over Lake Dongting

The silhouettes of the buildings are different, but somehow this unidentified 15th c. Korean artist caught the misty weather we are having perfectly.

More on this work here.

Dutch Winter Landscapes are full of skaters

Hendrick Avercamp, Winter Scene on a Canal

Pieter Breughel, Winter Landscape with Skaters

Johannes Pieter van Wisselingh, Skaters in a Dutch Winter Landscape

These lovely ideals make me long for a world where winter is playful, joyful, and beautiful. Not to mention full of some of the most gorgeous trees. Then, however, for comparison's sake, I google "new york city winter." 

It looks like some ideals persist.