Carrie Haddad Gallery is pleased to present this year’s The summer show. Bursting with energy and imagination, the group exhibit brings together a dynamic group of 6 artists whose works celebrate the exuberance of summer through bold color, playful design, and inventive use of mixed media. Featured artists include Clark Derbes, Samantha French, Andrea Moreau, Margaret G. Still, Susan Stover and Joy Taylor and will be on view June 6 – July 27. An artists’ reception will be held Saturday, June 7th from 5-7pm. All are welcome!

Andrea Moreau of Beacon, NY returns to the gallery this year with a highly anticipated group of colored pencil drawings featuring a disappearing cultural artifact: the postage stamp. While the tiny, graphic visual serves as the core of each drawing, Moreau teases from it a greater framework of context infused with humor and political commentary. It is no accident that this year’s selections include stamps from Canada (Stripes #2), USA (National Parks Service), and of course France (Protesters).

Originating from a deep interest in textiles, Susan Stover has expanded on a series of wall sculptures that are stitched from wood and cardboard. Working in her studio in Kingston, NY, the latest iterations of 2D and 3D hanging “tapestries” sit several inches off the wall while the reverse size is charged with a splash of fluorescent color. Pink Pleasure and Zip Zap Zop exude neon shadows that pop each design against the wall. Every puzzle-like component is contingent on the previous stitched piece with the final form gradually revealing itself through the process.

Color is an element in and of itself in the work of Red Hook based artist, Joy Taylor. Boldly pigmented still lifes are anything but still; well-constructed and unexpected color combinations take the stage in her larger-than-life botanicals rendered in acrylic. This curation of her work reintroduces paintings from 2015 to hang alongside more recent tableau, juxtaposing signature eccentric forms in a more muted pastel palette to create a rather cool contrast.

Clark Derbes debuts a lively set of poly-chromed wooden sculptures which create mesmerizing optical illusions that shift with perspective. Carved from tree species including elm, poplar, and maple, each piece of wood undergoes an intensive treatment of cutting, sanding, painting and burnishing. Bright hues of electric blues and fiery oranges enhance the illusion of depth in both wall-mounted and free-standing sculpture, blending modern art and visual trickery.

Margaret G. Still of Saugerties, NY leans on blunt color choices to convey essence in her modern depictions of the landscape. A graduate from U.C.L.A with an MFA in Painting, Still studied under the mentorship of Richard Diebenkorn and William Brice. The West Coast color influences dominate her palette choice and evoke a vibrant, sun-soaked aesthetic rooted in 20th century Americana and California cool. With local structures such as The Orpheum Theatre in Saugerties, NY or the remains of the Travel Lodge in Downtown Memphis, TN as subjects of her mid-size paintings, Still embraces man-made objects and offers a refreshing and uplifting escape into color, texture, and form.

Speaking of California cool, Samantha French will exhibit signature paintings of figures submerged in clear, blue swimming pools. Referencing her own photographs as source material in her studio just south of Kingston, her life size compositions strike a compelling balance between realism and abstraction. Youthful figures and brightly colored swimsuits are captured in lively detail, while the glistening light refracting off the water’s surface introduces unlikely hues and gestural mark making, pushing the work toward the edge of abstraction. These exquisite paintings isolate brief moments of “movement that is just about to happen and freezing it for eternity”.