The Grenning Gallery is pleased to present the latest paintings from three exemplary artists; Steven J. Levin, Matthias Meinel, and Melissa Franklin Sanchez in DAYDREAMS. This exhibit will be on view from Saturday, October 26th through Sunday, November 17th.
The work of all three of these artists in the exhibit have a dream-like quality, while still being representational—rooted in direct observations of nature. Steven Levin (b. 1965, Minnesota) is known for his expertly crafted realist compositions, however, his work plays with surrealism and even the uncanny. Mathias Meinel (b. 1981, Germany), in his first Grenning Gallery show, paints watery landscapes en plein air, bringing to mind the feeling of long walks, where nature allows the space for one’s mind to wander. Melissa Franklin Sanchez’s (b. 1984, England) paintings have an element of magical realism, enhanced by the hazy and reflective metal (copper and brass) she often paints on instead of canvas.
In an ode to one of the masters of surrealist dreamscapes, Steven Levin’s Magritte’s Hat he paints Magritte’s famous hat and apple from The Son of Man. As if it were an oversized egg, the apple sits comfortably in a bird’s nest. Levin loves to play with the visual similarities between feathered hats and birds’ nests. He calls it a “visual pun.” On the ledge the hat is sitting on, an eggshell has been broken out of, but—like the face in The Son of Man—no bird is in sight. Instead, a butterfly flutters above the nest.
About “The Son of Man” Magritte said "Everything we see hides another thing; we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present."
The perfect, even surrealistic, sky in Magritte’s Hat, is again on view in White Peonies with Ribbon. In the foreground, a luscious bouquet of white peonies erupts from a traditional glass vase. From buds eager to burst on the left, to the growing and fully open flowers that look almost as if they are breathing, to the falling flowers and their lost petals; the whole lifecycle of the flower is on display.
In the largest work we have from Levin this year, he returns to a favorite subject: museum interiors. Three portraits by Rembrandt and three museumgoers populate the canvas. Interestingly though, the portraits seem to be more present than the people. One woman gazes, not at the paintings but off towards another seated woman who is engrossed in her phone. The man in the scene casually looks at one of the portraits from the side. The figures in the portraits meanwhile seem far more grounded and aware, watching the people and even us, the viewers.
In a similarly muted mood, Message shows two people in an office with a bird in between them, flying in from the window. There is something uncanny about this image. Perhaps it is that there are two people in a room overly focused on ‘communicating’ yet completely unaware of each other and nature. We also noticed that there are two paintings on the wall in front of the man, yet he is staring straight into the blank wall in between. We can’t help but see a visual similarity to the Renaissance paintings where the Virgin Mary receives the news that she is pregnant. Perhaps Levin is using this white dove as an emissary from Nature begging the 21st century couple to wake up to nature and humanity?
Melissa Franklin Sanchez’s hints of magical realism invite her viewers’ minds to wander into her luminous paintings, suspending their disbelief while they watch flowers grow from floral carpets and walls, or simply travel over to the Italian countryside where the artist lives. She paints real places, like her home, backyard, and still-lifes, painted from life. She faithfully represents her subjects yet manages to conjure an otherworldly dimension on her copper and brass canvases.
Summer Over Bridgehampton depicts an evening on the beach from when Franklin Sanchez and her family visited us this summer. We feel the warm air turn cooler as the sun goes down. The water is so inviting, it is as if we can just dip our toe in from the gallery.
In Beauty Takes Time, Franklin Sanchez turns to a scene we love seeing every year: the view from her window. This painting is a reminder to slow down in step with nature. Little sprouts are starting to grow on the windowsill but will take time until they are as magnificent as the flowers on the desk. There is also a magical iris growing in the negative space to right of the desk.
We are excited to introduce Mathias Meinel (b. 1981, Erzgebirge, Germany) to Grenning Gallery’s followers. After finding his images on Instagram in 2019, Gallery Manager Megan Toy felt compelled to reach out to Meinel. At the time, we were curating an early summer group show titled “Thick & Wet,” which unveiled new works from Grenning Gallery stable, Nelson H. White, and our first time handling the works of Darius Yektai and Emily Persson. Although it was too last minute to get Meinel on the roster for “Thick & Wet,” Toy continued to follow his career, and purchased a small Meinel for her personal collection in 2021. We approached Meinel again in late 2023 to see if we could incorporate him into our 2024 calendar, and we are thrilled to have over a dozen original oil paintings, carefully sent from Germany.
Meinel excels at observing and depicting the textures of the natural world around him. His watery landscapes of meadows and flooded fields bring a sense of calm and quiet. In Meadow with Marguerites IV and V Meinel sets the viewer sitting or lying amongst the wildflowers, enveloped in the tall grass. We can almost hear the gentle swaying and swishing of the meadow in the breeze as the rest of the world slips away.
Meinel is particularly deft at capturing the beauty of a wet landscape, not a seascape, but a muddy, puddle-strewn field. In Marshland I, we see a reflective foreground of flooded grassland, leading up to a horizon of baren trees and an overcast sky. In Grass Tuft I, Meinel zooms in on his wetland subject, honing-in on the beauty of an ordinary spot of grass, surrounded completely by silvery blue water. Beneath the surface, Meinel hints at the swallowed earth sleeping in the shallows.
