Work by Ernie Grevers
While I was away in Provincetown, where there are more phony art galleries than there are real ones, I missed the opening at one quite authentic gallery in Westport.
“Two Forests,” with drawings and prints from Judith Orseck Katz and paintings by Ernie Grevers, runs through Saturday, Sept. 25 at the Nylen Gallery.
Both artists respond to the beauty and power of the forest, but express themselves differently. It is interesting to contrast the varying directions both women take.
“Ernie Grevers’ paintings are elemental and tactile, summoning the essence of tree and bark with heavy impasto and strong color,” says owner Wendy Nylen. The native of Holland was taken with Connecticut’s rolling hills and dense landscape, which stands in contrast with her open and flat homeland. “Ernie realized that which made her most content was creating profound connections between art and earth.”
But Orsek Katz’s work stand in contrast because they reflect a visit to a forest where Nazis murdered 100,000 people, mostly Jews, between 1941 and 1944.
“Compelled to record her emotional reaction to ‘the killing forest,’ Judith has created a series of starkly beautiful black and white ink drawings. The resulting images conjure scars as much as forest.”
