Sweet Dreaming
Sweet Dreaming brings together three artists Lindsey Benitz, Elynne Rosenfeld, and Gay Walling. Each artist creates these intimate moments with soft yet vibrant colors that dive into a new surreal environment. Lindsey observes her surroundings and transforms them in this tender yet playful scenery that you can get lost in. Elynne creates these brilliant skyscapes with a base layer of acrylic and creates dimensions with glass beading. The colors flourish with excitement and leave a lasting impression. Finally, Gay demonstrates a quite calming environment, romanticizing everyday objects, creating an everlasting memory.
About the Artists:
Lindsey Benitz
"My work explores questions of identity, community, and the search for self-expression within motherhood. My current work presents myself and my family in settings that emerge from the combination of imagined, observed, and remembered spaces. Playing with scale, these paintings touch on the surreal. My paintings of my children become imaginings of their imaginations – visualizations of connections between our shared reality and our individual inner worlds. I am interested in the tension between what we can and cannot know about each other. I seek to rediscover my own voice as my daughters - two parts of myself - walk through the world with ever-increasing independence. My paintings and etchings are filled with pattern and botanical motifs. I draw inspiration from textiles, tiles, and wallpaper, as well as real plants – from my mother’s garden at my childhood home, from the unexpected green spaces of Philadelphia, and from my travels."
Elynne Rosenfeld
"My mixed media paintings are comprised of acrylic, glass beads, and shattered tempered glass on canvas. The paint is layered in varied colors of spirals. I shatter the glass, glue it onto selected painted areas, and bead in between, as ‘mortar’ in between the glass shards. I like how the lines created by the shatter add further dimension to the paint beneath. Invasive Beauty is based on the flower of the Paulownia Tree. I am not a flower painter. These arise from the experience of seeing them pushing through a rusted fence outside an abandoned building. Their sheer nerve and perseverance have inspired me to paint prolifically even in these bizarre times. Both Sides Now is a series based on Cayman sunsets. These particular sunsets are special to me as they occur in the place where I have found myself most joyous. During the pandemic, especially, unable to travel, these images became even more meaningful."
Gay Walling
"I gravitate toward rendering commonplace objects in quiet, ordered arrangements, seeking to reflect the sense of calmness and awe I find in recognizing beauty in the ordinary. It is my way of taking a closer look at life and sharing that experience with the viewer. In my still life paintings, composition and color harmony, and the exploration of space take precedence over the significance of the featured objects. Often, it is the arrangement of the items that encourages the viewer to consider the importance of order, appreciation, and balance in life. I prefer to work in oil as it offers rich color depth and allows for subtle variations in color and value, and I appreciate the application for creating light and shadows as well as the endless variety of color. In all my paintings, I lean heavily on color and composition to achieve a certain mood. It is my hope that the viewer relates to the quiet mood and finds some respite from the sensory overload of modern life."
