Art Show: 'The Bliss of Solitude' at Front Four Gallery | Seven Days

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Stowe's Front Four Gallery Relaunches With Landscapes for Loners

"The Bliss of Solitude," the gallery's first curated show of visiting artists, presents a romantic, ethereal vision of empty vistas and nostalgic landscapes.

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Published September 18, 2024 at 10:00 a.m.


"All This Way" by Sonia Bukhgalter - COURTESY
  • Courtesy
  • "All This Way" by Sonia Bukhgalter

Each year, Vermont's transition to fall is marked not just by twinges of color on a few avant-garde trees but also by ethereal mornings when the rising sun illuminates heavy fog. It's isolating but magical. The same mood is conveyed in "The Bliss of Solitude," up through September 30 at Front Four Gallery in Stowe.

The show presents works by six artists, all women with international backgrounds. It's the first exhibition of visiting artists curated by Alexandra Weathers since she and her partner, Jack Morris, took over Robert Paul Galleries in the spring, and it accompanies their relaunch as Front Four Gallery.

While a selection of works by represented artists remains on view, most of the gallery is devoted to the exhibition. It's a noticeable change: Weathers and Morris have opened up the layout and given the works plenty of space to breathe.

That is crucial for the pieces in this show, all of which have an airy subtlety. Weathers conceived of the exhibition as a response to William Wordsworth's 1804 poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud." In it, the OG romantic recalls a field of daffodils by a lake: "For oft, when on my couch I lie / In vacant or in pensive mood, / They flash upon that inward eye / Which is the bliss of solitude."

"Innuendo" by Elena Lyakir - COURTESY
  • Courtesy
  • "Innuendo" by Elena Lyakir

Nostalgia for half-remembered landscapes comes through in the works, especially in Elena Lyakir's "Eyes of Hope," a 43-by-53-inch photographic print on silk crêpe de chine. Its gauzy view of a field in pastel candy colors translates as a lost memory. Adding to that effect, it hangs unframed on the wall, the shimmery silk moving with the air. Lyakir, who now lives in Marlboro, immigrated to the U.S. from then-Soviet Ukraine as a teenager; a sense of longing permeates her pieces.

Unlike Lyakir's immersive works, Kanny Yeung's round oil paintings on panels — most only 7.5 inches in diameter — are like portholes into memory. The Hong Kong-born artist's bio describes her as nomadic. Her paintings aren't identified as anywhere in particular, but they seem specific because they are painted with precision. An orange cloud at sunset in "Your Warmth (11)" floats alongside a dark view of flame-like northern lights in "Your Warmth (14)." These are curiosity-provoking vignettes.

Several artists in the show use gold elements in their work, shifting from landscape into more metaphysical territory. Boldest among them is Sonia Bukhgalter, whose paintings include large gilded stretches. In the dramatic "All This Way," near the show's entry, gold clouds curve across the sky over a river lit by sunset — or possibly the apocalypse. Bukhgalter's technique is true to her Florentine roots, while her painting style reads more like the Hudson River School. It's a powerful combination.

"Excitable Cells II" by Anne Cherubim - COURTESY
  • Courtesy
  • "Excitable Cells II" by Anne Cherubim

Sandrine Jacobson of Australia, Anne Cherubim of Canada and British painter Olivia Rose Durley each contribute to the show vaporous, almost abstract works, which nonetheless read as landscapes. Durley's 12-by-12-inch "Awakening" offers subtle lines and blobs of pink blurred into greenish-gray. They improbably but absolutely add up to an out-of-focus field, with a smooth surface that still looks wet, adding to the photographic effect.

"The Bliss of Solitude" is a great start for Front Four. In a spot that has presented Vermonty vistas for decades, it successfully articulates a different kind of landscape: ethereal, elusive and seen with fresh eyes.

The original print version of this article was headlined "Stowe's Front Four Gallery Relaunches With Landscapes for Loners"

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