"Sky Paintings", a solo show of new work by Philip Govedare opening November 7 and continuing through December 20, 2015. There will be a conversation with the artist followed by a reception on Saturday November 14 from 2-4 pm. The decision to focus the show on the sky paintings started Norman Lundin thinking about the challenges Govedare (or any painter) faces in this kind of work: "Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same," said Ralph Waldo Emerson. This quote justly describes the formal concerns that must be addressed in landscape painting in the broad sense and skies in the particular. Skies as the central content of a painting (as opposed to just attending a landscape) are not common in contemporary art; nevertheless, in this work Philip Govedare focuses on the sky part of this equation. For his paintings, he must create an illusion that convinces the eye, a sense of breathable air and awareness of time and place. Skies become a singular challenge because "the always and never the same" component is continuously in play- there is little to hang onto (unlike a figure or still life, where the subject remains fixed and artists struggle to describe it in whatever manner or style they can). Painting skies is more akin to non-objective painting but with the "need to convince the eye: added on. Govedare handles all these various formal concerns very well indeed. There are, however, expressive concerns too. He has said In landscape painting it is the skies that set the emotional tone.;One should be aware that description (along with all those formal factors), while very important, is not the point. In these paintings the point is to generate a connection with the viewer which creates a sense of emotional resonance that will last for a while.
