Please, Don't Wake Me

Works by Miguel Carter-FisherLuis Colan, Skylar Hughes, and Walter Schrank

Opening Reception

Friday, February 10, 7-9 pm

artist talk

Saturday, February 11, 2-4 pm

Guest Curator, Miguel Carter-Fisher

Please, Don't Wake Me, a line taken from the Beatles song "I'm Only Sleeping," is the title of Eric Schindler Gallery's group exhibition featuring artists Miguel Carter-Fisher, Luis Colan, Skylar Hughes, and Walter Schrank.

The drawings, paintings, and prints are diverse in style but share a common root in the space between the ethereal and the tangible. These personal works are like pieces of faded dreams and give lasting form to the interiority of the self.

The opening reception will also feature a reimagining of "I'm Only Sleeping" by songwriter Sean Bullock.

 

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Miguel Carter-Fisher  

Miguel Carter-Fisher is currently based in his hometown, Richmond, Virginia. His interest in the arts  began as a child and was nurtured by his father, the late painter Bill Fisher. At 18 he moved to  Connecticut, where he studied both painting and philosophy at the University of Hartford. After  graduating, Miguel moved to Brooklyn to attend the New York Academy of Art. There he studied  traditional drawing, painting, and composition techniques. After graduate school, he worked at Soho Art  Materials, where he educated artists, collectors, and galleries on diverse methods and materials of  painting. Since returning to Richmond in 2014, Miguel has taught at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,  Milk River Arts, and Bon Air Juvenile Corrections Center through Art 180. Miguel was also an assistant  professor and the studio arts coordinator at Virginia State University. He is currently an assistant  professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. Miguel’s work has been exhibited at various galleries  throughout the United States and abroad. 

Luis Colan  

Luis Colan was born in Lima, Peru in 1980. At age ten he and his family moved to Connecticut, where he  continued his education from middle school through college. Attending the Hartford Art School, at the  University of Hartford, Luis was influenced by artists and professors Stephen Pat Brown, Fred Wessel,  and Jeremiah Patterson. It is from these mentors he learned new techniques and color theory that  pushed his work further. While at the Hartford Art School, Luis was introduced to abstraction under the  guidance of professor Pat Lipsky. During the short period of experimentation with abstraction he was  able to further explore color and the physicality of oil paint. 

After graduating in 2004 Luis moved to New York City, where he currently lives and works. He has  continued his education by taking classes at the Art Students League and the Teaching Studios of Art in  Brooklyn, both schools have exposed him to the teachings of Dan Thompson, Adam Miller, Robert Zeller,  and Bennett Vadnais. Working closely with these artists has allowed him to refine his ability to depict  landscapes and figures. Partaking in numerous events and workshops, including Plein Air workshops in  Tuscany in 2013 and 2015 has allowed him to continue to develop his vision as a landscape painter. He  has been exhibiting in New York and surrounding areas in several group shows, five solo exhibitions, and  in 2010 became a Junior Member at the Salmagundi Club. 

It is at the Salmagundi Club where Luis was reacquainted with Monotype printing which has become an  important part of his practice. The process has allowed him to explore and use what he has learned in  painting the landscape outdoors to execute images from imagination and memory.

Skylar Hughes  

“I am interested in art making as an embodiment of nature’s process of chance, change, and growth; I  try to paint how it feels to be in nature, connected to something outside of ourselves and the confines of  life’s everyday structures.  

This body of work focuses on seasons, divisions, and terrain as visual framework for explorations on the  concurrent nature of structure / temporality, fullness / emptiness, inner / outer, limitation / possibility, the  present / what’s next.”  

Skylar Hughes (b. 1986, New Britain, CT) is an artist living and working in Los Angeles, CA. Recent solo  exhibitions include Wren in the Privet, Alias Books East (2022), Warm into the Day, The Lodge (2019),  New Torn Collage, Day Space Night (2018), We’re All Stone Raising, The Lodge (2016), and One Big  Gust of Wind, New Britain Museum of American Art (2013). Skylar has participated in group shows in  CA, NY, CT, Italy, and has work in the permanent collections of Lightforms Art Center (Hudson, NY) and  the New Britain Museum of American Art.  

Walter Schrank  

The picture plane shares space with the imaginary and workaday world  

wherein reappearing forms, marks and motifs, much like reoccurring dreams  

are arranged to represent the real.  

- Walter Schrank 

Walter Schrank is originally from Houston, Texas. He received his MFA from Maryland Institute of College  and Art. He now lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. In addition to painting Walter is also a Poet. His two  collections are Small Barbarisms and Battle Cries of Every Size.

Exhibition runs through March 18, 2023

Gallery hours: Wed-Sat 12-5 or by appointment

Gallery Artists Holiday Celebration

with over 20 Participating Artists!

Opening Reception

Friday, December 9th, 7-9 pm 

Artists

Kyle Andrew Phillips, Ward Saunders, Kathleen Hall, Mark Pehanich, Jason E Bennett, Miguel Carter-Fisher, David Rohrer, Dolly Holmes, R. Sawan White, Scott Phillips, Kristen Peyton, Jack Lawrence, Blythe King, Ted Randler, Bob Scott, Kelly Queener, Lisa Taranto, Nicole Renee Randall, Nicholas Cossitt, Julie Elkins, and Alix Petrie 

This is a purchase and carry show!
Exhibition runs through December 23, 2022

Gallery hours:  Wed-Sat 12-5

Kyle Andrew Phillips: There in the Air

Opening Reception

Friday, September 23, 7 - 9 pm

Artist Talk

Saturday, September 24, 2 pm

Statements for There in the Air and adjacent work:

There in the Air

I have meticulously created paintings that portray surreal narratives I have experienced over the past two years. Although I did not want it to be explicitly so or blatantly obvious, I am using covid as a lens that distorts the intricacies of our world. Hence the show’s title. Combined with referential imagery, contrasted darks and lights, atmosphere and humor, I wanted to tell these stories and show contradictions. 

The paintings mainly depict New York City and capture the emptiness of urban life during the pandemic. There are no figures in the majority of these paintings. There is just one, Flight Over Leonard St., depicting a boy on a rooftop who is playing alone amongst imagined monsters that he will soon lose his toy plane to. I feel we can relate to this child as recent times have brought about new fears and uncertainties of the future. Yet his toy airplane is flying towards light. There is hope of a safe landing and retrieval of the plane.

Strong light is a motif that carries through the work as a symbol of a better future. Some paintings are homages to paintings from the past, like Arnold Bocklin’s Isle of the Dead. Others take us to barren lands in an end of the world scenario like Desert Thoughts, an homage to Lars von Triers’ film Melancholia. 

In Circles

This series was started years ago after the loss of a loved one as a type of lengthy meditation between my commissioned work and abstract work. I began painting these landscapes as a means to mentally escape to, with future plans of travel. The project took years to complete and as a result its meaning evolved overtime. At first I wanted these places all to myself but even though that intention changed, the lack of figures inhabiting the spaces is a product of that. The isolation a painter must go through to work can seem intense but I used it as a way to find myself and as a motif in the work. I hope now that viewers are also able to escape through these small portholes and into the landscapes. 

The first six paintings are from found photographs and the final four are from select locales I was grateful to have visited myself. They began to become documentations of the new, wonderful things I was experiencing. The views depicted were chosen for their uniqueness and in the cases in which they were found photographs, the connection I felt through the photographer. 

Skulls

This is a long-running memento mori series that celebrates life with motifs, humor and having fun with the paint. The skulls initially started as a simple color theory project to occupy my time in the start of the pandemic, and I began incorporating more literal themes into them. There are homages to other artists, nods to books and movies, and a celebration of all kinds of human achievement and food.

Kyle Andrew Phillips lives in Brooklyn, NY. He has had multiple group shows in NYC and abroad as well as solo shows in Connecticut. His work can be found in permanent collection of The New Britain Museum of American Art in CT and numerous private collections across the country.

Exhibition ends October 22, 2022.

KATHLEEN HALL: UNSTILL LIFE

ART OPENING

Friday, May 6, 7-9 pm


OPEN HOUSE

Saturday, May 7, 2-4 pm

Kathleen Hall is a Virginia-based painter working primarily from direct observation. Born in Columbus, Ohio to a family of artists, she went on to receive her BA from the University of Virginia and an MFA from the University of New Hampshire. Kathleen has been a resident at numerous artist colonies including Yaddo, the Vermont Studio Center, the Alfred and Trafford Klots International Program, the Cité Internationale des Arts, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has taught painting and drawing at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, the College of William and Mary, UNC Asheville, and Centre College in Kentucky. 

The exhibition will feature recent oil paintings as well as a series of miniature gouache paintings of trees inspired by illuminated manuscripts. You can read a recent interview with Kathleen here.

Exhibition runs through May 28th

Gallery hours: Wed-Sat 12-4 or by appointment

Mark Pehanich: New Paintings and Prints

ART OPENING

Friday, April 1, 7-9 pm

OPEN HOUSE

Saturday, April 2, 1-4 pm

ARTIST STATEMENT

Line, shape and color illustrate the intuitive in my work. Images are extracted from  small line drawings. which are gestural and freeform at times and geometric and  formal at others. Combining and modifying multiple drawings produce surprising  and unexpected results. Compositions are developed through extensive  experimentation and exhaustive editing. Materials range from a variety of  traditional paints to oxidized metallic paint, shredded tire rubber, micro glass  beads and other additives. The process is disciplined, but guided entirely by  intuition. The paintings are left to stand on their own to achieve an identity that  speaks through its qualities. This elemental approach gives the paintings room to  breathe and frees the viewer from the demands of literal interpretation.

Mark Pehanich is a painter and sculptor originally from Chicago. He has a BFA  from Northern Illinois University and an MFA from Brooklyn College, where  he studied with Lee Bontecou, Phillip Pearlstein, Alan D’Arcangelo, and  Lennart Anderson. He has taught painting, drawing and sculpture at the  Appomattox Regional Governors School and Richard Bland College. After  living in Brooklyn, NY, for 18 years, Mark moved to Petersburg, where he and  his wife converted an old cotton and peanut warehouse into studio spaces.  

Mark has exhibited his paintings and sculpture widely, including the Brooklyn  Museum, Stamford Museum, Butler Institute of Art, El Paso Museum, Virginia  Tech, and Kyoto Gallery in Japan. A former board member of the Sculptors  Guild and the National Mural Society, he has created murals and large-scale  public sculpture in New York and Virginia. Mark is the recipient of numerous  awards, including the Charles G. Shaw award. He is currently represented by  Eric Schindler Gallery in Richmond, VA. 

Exhibition runs through April 29, 2022

Gallery Hours: Wednesday - Saturday 12-4 or by appointment. Please follow the Eric Schindler Gallery on Facebook and Instagram for updates or any changes.

Jason E. Bennett, Landscapes

Oil, gouache, and digital paintings

ART OPENING

Friday, March 4, 7-9 pm

OPEN HOUSE

Saturday, March 5, 1-4 pm

Jason Bennett was raised in Mechanicsville, VA and has lived up and down the east coast working primarily in the field of video game development. Bennett’s work has appeared in international projects including Bioshock Infinite, Shadow of the Colossus, Madden NFL, and more. Clients have included: Sony, Electronic Arts, Major League Baseball, Wizards of the Coast, Def Jam Recordings, and NASA. He currently resides in Richmond, VA and teaches with VCU’s Communication Arts Department.

The March 2022 Eric Schindler “Landscapes” show features a collection of paintings (utilizing oils, gouache, and digital media) completed primarily onsite in various locations throughout Richmond, Virginia. The intent of the work is to study visual phenomena with paint - light, color, shape, texture, and edges - and to appreciate the beauty of our ever-changing world.

Exhibition runs through March 26, 2022

Gallery Hours: Wednesday - Saturday 12-4 or by appointment. Please follow the Eric Schindler Gallery on Facebook and Instagram for updates or any changes.

David Narum: Intentions and Improvisations

ART OPENING

Friday, February 4, 7-9 pm

OPEN HOUSE

Saturday, February 5, 1-4 pm

ARTIST STATEMENT

I have been painting much of my adult life. There have been interludes dominated by child rearing, furniture making and kitchen remodeling. Nevertheless, it’s art work that always returns to the fore to nurture and confuse. I am focused on the process of producing surprises. I never know exactly where the work will take me. The paintings are improvisations containing descriptive images that remain open to the viewers interpretation. They are fantasies that exist in a specific time and place but remain undefined. The images grow organically but have the imprint of manufacture. Every picture tells a story. For me as the artist the painting is what remains on the panel when I decide I’m finished. It’s a relic of many decisions made. Hopefully for the viewer there’s a whole new narrative to be discovered.

Exhibition runs through February 26, 2022

Masks required and to be worn at all times inside the gallery. Please follow the Eric Schindler Gallery on Facebook and Instagram for updates or any changes.

Jennifer Holloway Bopst: Recommended For Ages 4 & Up

Art Opening

Friday, December 3, 7-9 pm

Open House

Saturday, December 4, 1-4 pm

Exhibition runs through December 23, 2021

Gallery hours:  Wed-Sat 12-4 or by appointment

Artist Statement

Jennifer Holloway Bopst
Recommended For Ages 4 & Up

Dedicated to my father, William Martin Holloway
(1942 - 2016)

As a portrait artist, I like to add non traditional elements in with my paintings.

My past works include a plastic bobblehead series, lollipop heads, even Potatohead makes an occasional appearance. I love the playful element of the toys, in relation to the human subject in the paintings.

For this series, I chose the iconic novelty disguise of comedian Groucho Marx as a universally recognized way to connect us through our funny bones. Groucho was a legendary zany character that spent nearly 7 decades making people laugh.

This body of work is a lighthearted exploration into the human psyche.
The future looks bright!


“Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light.”
- Groucho Marx

FUTURE ANCESTORS: Blythe King

OPENING: Friday, Nov. 5, 7-9 pm

OPEN HOUSE: Saturday, Nov. 6, 1-4 pm

VIRTUAL OPENING: Thursday, Nov. 4, 7 pm (Eric Schindler Gallery Facebook)

Time is a being — like you, like me.

“Monahwee made friends with Time. When he got on his horse to race his beloved warrior friends, they had a little talk. Time said, “Get on my back and we’ll fly free.” No matter how fast the others raced, Monahwee and his horse always arrived long before it was possible. Those were the best of times.” Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings.

'“Time is not always the way we imagine it to be. Our experience may appear sequential, but that is not the full experience. How do we connect with time, be time, as opposed to understanding the past, present, and future as separate from ourselves? Beings, things, and events do not exist in time: beings, things, and events are times.” Shinshu Roberts, Being-Time.

“Indigenous and Zen Buddhist approaches to time offer breaks from the usual linear understanding of it. It’s multidimensional and living, like you and me. Time is not a river running inexorably to the sea, but the sea itself — its tides that appear and disappear, the fog that rises to become rain in a different river. All things that were will come again.” Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass.

Future Ancestors connects us to time by simultaneously merging past, present, and future. Each woman is both unique and universal — history and prophecy. She is born moons ago, drifts through oblivion, and resurfaces anew. She lives for the future.

Exhibition runs November 5 - 27, 2021.

Miguel Carter-Fisher, Negative Shapes

Opening

Friday, June 11, 6-9 pm

Special guest guitarist Dylan Barrows will perform "The Warmth of Silences," a new composition written for this exhibition, at 8:00 pm.

VIRTUAL OPENING will be Thursday, June 10 at 7:00 pm on the Eric Schindler Gallery Facebook page.

Open House

Saturday, June 12, 1-5 pm

Artist Statement for Negative Shapes

What is the shape between memories and the present? Identity and the body? Embraces and resentments? Children and parents? Longing and fear? Intimacy and detachment? Our ancestry and our future?

In drawing, a negative shape is the space between objects. Although it is the contour of a void, perceiving this shape is essential to understanding the relationship between things.

- Miguel Carter-Fisher

 Exhibition runs through July 9.

DISCO TORNADO 2020 SPRING TO SPRING, new paintings and sculpture by Tracey St. Peter

Virtual Livestream:

Friday, May 7 at 7pm on the Eric Schindler Gallery Facebook page

Open Houses (in person):

Saturday, May 8, 1-5pm
Sunday, May 9, 1-4pm

DISCO TORNADO 2020 SPRING TO SPRING

The majority of these pieces were made between March 2020 and March 2021. The work reflects the duality of this time period. Pandemic isolation allowed for increased introspection, reflection, and studio time. The coordinated heroism of some stood in sharp contrast to the selfishness of others. Despite the hardships we experience, there is still beauty and light. During the past year, I was often drawn to a particular memory from my childhood, drawing and coloring on the floor, next to my “Barbie Family House”. The themes and color palette for these works are inspired by the Mod Pop aesthetic of that doll house.  

The three dimensional works begin as papier-mâché sculptures, that are then coated with encaustic wax, multiple layers, added, removed, shaped, refined, and finally adorned with found or repurposed objects. The encaustic wax surfaces can be deceiving, in that they often mimic other materials, such as, stone, plastic or chocolate. The repurposed objects add energy to the pieces and reinforce my intention to make works with minimal waste or negative environmental impact.

Alix Petrie, Lost and New Found Things

Virtual Opening 

Thursday, April 8 at 7pm on the Eric Schindler Gallery Facebook page

 

Open House

Friday, April 9, 5-8pm

Saturday, April 10, 1-5pm

Show runs through May 3, 2021.

 

Artist Statement

LOSS AND NEW FOUND THINGS

This series of paintings was created over the last two years of my life, during which I experienced some major losses, the most painful one being the death of my father. It is a description of many difficult times throughout the grieving process, but is also about the many moments I found hope in unexpected people and places.  Each painting is a story about a moment that changed me forever.   My work is always about connections to people and places, but this series is even more personal to me and is very much influenced by the friends and family who continue to walk with me (and sometimes carry me) through these crazy days.

Alexandra Margaret Petrie

Richmond artist Alix Petrie was born October 29, 1973 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In 1984, Alix moved from Canada to Richmond with her parents and two brothers.

She grew up in a home where from an early age she was encouraged to follow her passion to express herself in drawing and painting. After completing her secondary education at Tucker High School, she enrolled in the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts and then went on to the Blue Ridge Community College Veterinary Tech program. This education has provided the platform for her to follow her two great loves: painting and caring for animals.

Bold flat planes of acrylic color characterize her early work, which was inspired by people and events from her personal experience. Her first works in oils focused on the organic, and took inspiration from nature and landscapes.  Her most recent works involve a more emotional, personal story about her own journey through loss.

Alix has been represented by Schindler Gallery since 2018, and is most excited to participate in her first solo exhibition here. 

Faded Empires: Paintings by Dave Moore

Eric Schindler Gallery in collaboration with The Highpoint

Open Houses

Friday, Dec 11th, 4-7 pm

Saturday, Dec 12th, 1-6 pm

Virtual Livestream

Eric Schindler Gallery Facebook page, Friday evening starting at 7:15 pm

Location of the show will be at The Highpoint, 3300 West Broad Street, Richmond, VA.

8 in the gallery at a time and masks are required.

“Maybe the sun,” new work by Scott Phillips

Virtual Opening

Thursday, October 15 at 7 p.m. — Live stream on the Eric Schindler Gallery Facebook page.

Open House

Friday, October 16, 5-8 p.m. + Saturday, Octobver 17, 1-5 p.m.

From Artist Scott Phillips:

"Maybe the sun" is a series of 17 paintings that comprise an all-over process which blends multiple themes and scenarios within a landscape design. In working this way, I hope to convey a manic yet beautiful world.

Gods and Ghosts - New Ceramics by Julie Elkins

Gods and Ghosts_Julie Elkins

VIRTUAL OPENING

"Gods and Ghosts” New Ceramics by Julie Elkins will open virtually on Thursday, September 10 at 7 p.m. with Special Guest, Murv.

Live stream on the Eric Schindler Gallery Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Eric-Schindler-Gallery-119667029464.

Visit in Person

Open House with the Artist

Friday, September 11, 4-8 p.m. and Saturday, September 12, 12-6 p.m. Only four people in the gallery at a time.

Show runs through October 10th. During the month, please make an appointment to see the works in person.  

Masks and social distancing are required.