Play on Perspective - works by Yrjo Edelmann, Warner Friedman, Patrick Hughes and Steve Perrault

Scott Richards Contemporary Art presents PLAY ON PERSPECTIVE, a group exhibition that charts the unexpected world beyond the horizon line. An opening cocktail reception will take place on Thursday, January 3, 5:30-7:30 pm. The exhibition continues thru February 2.

Perspective is an essential part of human visual perception; it’s what plants us firmly on the earth. Artists throughout history have grappled with the concept, but the painters in this exhibition challenge and expand the rules in surprising… Show more ways. Sometimes playful and irreverent, sometimes surreal and profound, their paintings literally present us with alternate points of view.

Warner Friedman’s irregularly shaped canvases explore the landscape, using exaggerated perspective to disorient and involve the viewer. His meticulous works present architectural portals opening on to serene countryside. With dramatic plays of shadow and light, they appear to project beyond the surface of the wall and into another dimension, inviting us to step through into the landscape beyond.

The paintings of Steve Perrault also depict architectural entryways to distant outdoor vistas. However, these rectangular spaces are not based on reality, but are entirely conceptual and symbolic. His intention is to use perspective as metaphor to pull the viewer through the various archways, doors, and windows, leading into deeper regions of personal discovery.

In the case of Patrick Hughes, the line between sculpture and painting is blurred. Hughes manipulates the laws of perspective with his three-dimensional painted wood constructions of interiors and exteriors. By physically reversing the apparent perspective in the subject matter, multiple points of view are presented simultaneously from the various surfaces, giving the works a sense of paradoxical motion.

Yrjo Edelmann’s paintings appear to float a few inches off the wall as curious and surreal sculptural objects. Painted in perfect trompe l’oeil, these paintings of mysterious packages wrapped with string depict every crinkle and tear in the wrapping paper. The shape of each canvas exactly conforms to the shape of the painted subject, giving it an illusion of three-dimensionality, and a lifelike presence.

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