the fall arts season is here and we are super pumped for our september exhibitions! solo exhibitions of new paintings by david kroll and emma childs will be on view this month. we are particularly excited to pair these two artists together. we have been exhibiting david kroll’s stunning paintings since we opened our doors way back in the 90’s so he is a longtime gallery artist. emma childs whose work was just included in this past summer ‘s intro exhibition is having her first solo exhibition at the gallery . the dissimilarity between the two provides an incredible backdrop to two artist at different places in their careers.
david kroll received his bfa from the san francisco art institute and a mfa from the art institute of chicago. he taught at the school of the art institute of chicago for almost 20 years. david kroll paints personal refuges and interior landscapes - places to visit for solace and sanctuary. much of his work is intuitive. his paintings are more than visually interesting compositions of creatures, objects and environments. they are imagined, invented moments that touch upon man's complicated, perplexing relationship with nature. each painting reveals more paradoxes than resolutions inviting the viewer to contemplate how disconnected we are from nature. david kroll creates an emotional and intellectual connection between the viewer and the power of landscape, the independent web of life, the idea of nature itself. his work is held in numerous private and public collections.
“i paint personal refuges in the form of still lives and imagined landscapes - places to visit for solace, meditation and sanctuary. i work intuitively to create a connection between the viewer and the power of place, the web of life, the idea of nature itself. my approach to still life allows me to work with a number of themes that have long interested me, and draw me in again and again. thematically i am interested in the interaction between man – and manmade objects – and nature. in a painted still life these ideas collapse on each other - and raise many questions. which is more beautiful – a rural landscape or a chinese vase? which is more alive, which is more still? is the rendering of an egret or a mountainside on porcelain more or less profound than treatment of the same subject on canvas? is a nest a bowl? is a vase a broken egg? and isn’t all of nature anthropomorphized in the sense that, inescapably, man sees nature through man’s eyes?
i repeatedly place songbirds, koi, and reptiles in my compositions – delicate and fragile, yet purposeful and assured. a bird rests on a rookwood vase. koi swim powerfully in mid-air, above a blue and white ceramic bowl. an egret hesitates before striking a stoneware fish. do these animals care as much as we do about the difference between human objects and the natural world? and what does any of this have to say about what nature is, or the beauty of nature itself?
compositionally the still life allows me to explore contrast – the contrast between foreground and background, between light and dark, between circle and square, between motion and stillness. it also allows me to work liberally with color – the color of natural elements contrasted with manufactured objects.
for these reasons and more i have found the still life form, often incorporating landscape elements, to be a tremendously rich means of expressing my sense of the beautiful and for exploring contemporary topics and concerns that perplex, compel and fascinate me.”
emma childs was born and raised in baltimore, maryland and received her bfa in fine arts from the maryland institute college of art. she uses eloquent shapes and thoughtful pops of color to create objects that physically interact with their environment. through her minimalist approach, childs transforms experiences and emotions into simplified form, color, and geometric edges. the results are eye-catching compositions, which tell complicated and interconnected narratives in an accessible way. emma childs’s paintings are layered depictions of existence in the worlds we build around ourselves.
in this current body of work, emma childs has been developing a language of painting that allows her to explore the way we exist in the world we build around us. childs’ work explores moments of chaos and mundanity, freedom and containment, isolation and contact. she is interested in the ability of a work to evoke an energetically emotional response from the viewer as well as creating objects that physically interact with their environment, to walk a line between creating something self-contained as well as reaching outward.
all available work by david kroll + emma childs can be viewed on our website under their individual artist tab including sizing + pricing. hidell brooks gallery is by appointment only. please call the gallery if you have any further questions.