Contemporary Art Matters is pleased to present Still life, a group of drawings, paintings and textile works exploring the rich spectrum of contemporary approaches to the still life genre. This Viewing Room presentation features artists Cooper Cox, Linda Gall, Carlos Gamez de Francisco, Daina Higgins, Kira Nam Greene, Cheryl Pope, Billy Sullivan, and Liz Trapp. The exhibition will be on view in May at the gallery’s 243 N. 5th Street location in Columbus, Ohio.

Tulips, sunflowers, foxgloves—and kimchi? While we are accustomed to admiring bouquets of flowers, what about the beauty of a prepared dish or the main course of a celebratory dinner? In Kira Nam Greene’s food-centric still lifes, her realistically rendered cuisine inhabits an environment of decorative patterns and multicultural motifs. Working in colored pencil, gouache, and watercolor, her works on paper blend observational detail with abstract elements, moving between real and imagined spaces. Similarly, artist Liz Trapp incorporates fabric pattern and design into her mixed-media work. In Tea and Oranges she creates a whimsical realm loosened from realism, where vibrant splashes of color and applied textile swatches form vases of garden flowers on a tabletop strewn with bright citrus fruits.

The still life has a long history of celebrating abundance, yet in the paintings of Carlos Gamez de Francisco the bouquet becomes more than ornament. These lovely blooms serve as habitats and resting places for the creatures that share our world, with butterflies, birds, and chameleons adding their colorful presence.This symbolic reminder of nature’s role can also be found in Linda Gall’s Dead flower paintings. Her work recalls the Vanitas still life paintings of the seventeenth century, which emphasized the transience of life through the depiction of ephemeral objects. Gall’s paintings dwell on the beauty of wilting petals, drooping stems, and faded colors, prompting viewers to reconsider our understanding of beauty.

Cheryl Pope’s textile work, Room with a knife, also portrays blooms as they decline and drop from their container. With the central composition and rich red background of the felt, inspiration from Manet and Matisse comes through. Billy Sullivan’s drawing Teddy bear sunflowers immortalizes the splendor of flowers at peak bloom, and situates them within an ordinary living room or studio, bringing the sublime into everyday life.

In Cooper Cox’s painting April, while a similar subject is represented, it is the distinct paint handling that commands attention. Bold textures and creamy hues of peach and rose celebrate the materiality of paint over the subject itself. In Daina Higgins’ drawing Study for Kucios table, the perspective broadens to include figures gathered around the still life objects that set the stage for a celebratory dinner. Echoing early Renaissance painting, the still life remains central while becoming part of a larger narrative composition.

Throughout history, across movements such as Impressionism and Cubism, artists have continually reimagined the still life. The artists in Still life present contemporary works carrying this tradition forward, offering fresh interpretations of an enduring genre.