October 13 - 29, 2006
Not Quite Natural

Babette Allina, Susan Doyle, and Wendy Wahl
Reception: Gallery Night Thursday, October 19, 5 - 7 p.m.

The Chazan Gallery @ Wheeler will be showing Not Quite Natural: new work by Babette Allina, Susan Doyle, and Wendy Wahl from October 13 - 29, 2006. There will be a reception for the artists on Gallery Night, Thursday, October 19, from 5 - 7 p.m. The public is invited.
	Babette Allina’s work raises these questions: Is there a push and pull in all our interactions? What about between objects? The paintings in this exhibition derive from snapshots of native water lilies called “Floating Hearts.” They capture alternating moments of objects in motion or coming to rest, seeking to convey tension and release through abstracted reductive mark making. Allina considers this “a kind of short hand to describe negotiated spaces.” Each landscape finds its basis in real forms, which are shadowed by a memory of the figurative pond they inhabit. Allina received her B.A. from Bennington College. Exhibitions include the URI Galleries; Newport Art Museum; Hera Gallery and Paulo Salvador Gallery, New York, NY. Her work has appeared in various publications including ArtNews, Urban Design and New York Magazine.
	Susan Doyle’s paintings are metaphors for how the natural materials we are born with (talents, temperament, intellect, etc.,) are shaped to a large degree by familial and cultural experience. In her painting process, Doyle carves an undulating substructure from wood and stretches canvas over it. She then marks linear divisions to create a grid on the surface, which metaphorically takes on the role of the structures of culture. Doyle received both her M.F.A. and B.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design. She has won various awards and has shown her work extensively. Exhibitions include Grand Central Gallery, Tampa, FL, Kristina Wasserman Gallery, Providence, RI, Sailor’s Valentine Gallery, Nantucket, MA, and Caelum Gallery, New York, NY.
Wendy Wahl is concerned with nature and culture. She intends to make art that expresses aspects of existence in unexpected ways and attempts to challenge our assumptions about our surroundings. The pieces in this exhibition are inspired by the arboreal form literally and figuratively. She employs repetitive marks to make drawings and repetitive parts to create a sculpture titled Stand for Knowledge. Her work is formally engaging and stimulates the viewer to think about the collective condition. Wahl received her BA at California State University, Northridge and her MAE at Rhode Island School of Design. She has won various awards including an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. Her work is included in many private collections as well as the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York and the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design.