3 Models/Mylar, Jerry Duane Ott

Exhibition Label: "Dreams and Portals," Jun-2008, Kris Ercums and Susan Earle Intro Label: This summer display features selections from the Spencer’s permanent collection, including works that may evoke dreams and ideas of place, near and far. The works range in media from painting and watercolor to collage, textile, and video. Some may transport you to other places, such as the lyrical "Blue Door (La Porte Bleue)" by French artist Pierre Lesieur. Reflecting the artist’s travels to North Africa, this painting evokes the sea or an open door in a way that suggests a dream, or a portal. Many works feature abstract imagery, at times suggestive of dreams, or passages to other landscapes, be they of the mind or actual places. Others combine abstraction and figuration, like the William T. Wiley drawing "Feeding Time." Others teeter between realism and abstraction, such as "Foam Chrome II" by Gary Pruner. A portal can be defined as a door or gate or entrance, especially a grand or imposing one. Paintings themselves are like portals. They allow us to enter worlds and spaces like nothing else can. Let your mind wander and see what dreams you might recall, or what new perspectives you might gain. Label: "When I first began making these paintings in the late 60's it represented a logical progression from the pop art related work I had been doing since I began painting. Realism as such was all but unheard of in any sophisticated mode and any realistic imagery based on photography bordered on sacrilege. This was prior to terminology being coined such as "Sharp Focus Realism," or "Superrealism." and finally the name that stuck, "Photorealism." "After showing for many years as an early "Photorealist" and a "Figure Painter" in major shows of the period, I became aware that only a small part of my feelings about painting were shared with other "Photorealist" painters; their work being cool and devoid of emotional content while mine tended to lean toward more visceral emotional issues and figure painting... These feelings have never left me and I find myself now involved and reflecting upon the same dilemma, striving to do paintings that excite me and fulfill my needs while enabling me to express my feelings in visual terms.