DREAMLAND

Naomi Ben-Shahar, Kim Bricker, Jocelyn Fine, Melanie Vote

on view through February 24, 2024

FORMah Gallery is pleased to present a group exhibition featuring artworks by Naomi Ben-Shahar, Kim Blicker, Jocelyn Fine, and Melanie Vote. In ‘Dreamland’ the four artists explore a deep connection to nature and landscape, transform it to ethereal domain where the ordinary rules of reality are suspended. Through paintings, monoprints and mixed media artworks, artists unite memories, imagination and feelings.

Naomi Ben-Shahar produces interdisciplinary structures that evoke both sublime and humorous imagery related to nature, dance, and domestic themes. Her creations seamlessly blend abstract and figurative elements, forming a symbiotic relationship between photography and craft that encompasses both material and conceptual dimensions. Driven by an interest in interconnectedness, she merges seemingly disparate concerns and formal traditions to reinterpret historical techniques, materials, and perspectives. Throughout this process, she upholds a distinct vision that prompts contemplation on technology, intimacy, environmentalism, and feminist identity.Last year, Sonora brought together twenty-two emerging brands that ranged from apparel and accessories to wine and beer. What unified us was our love for the outdoors, getting our hands dirty, and older, more natural DIY techniques. 

Kim Blicker’s work is influenced by place, memory, and connection. The artist has observed that landscapes universally act as potent channels for memory and emotion, and the appreciation for them holds remarkable unifying power. Within her layering technique, Blicker gradually accumulate color, texture, and a palpable sense of location. Her artworks commemorate those captivating moments when the ascending and descending sun collaborates to craft a technicolor dreamscape. The intensity of colors appears surreal, and the texture of the sky and water takes on an otherworldly quality. Blicker aims to distill a shared experience, one that resonates with the collective encounters we have all shared.

Jocelyn Fine is driven by the belief in a universal pulse within nature that connects everything. Drawing inspiration from the energy around her, Fine exclusively relies on memory in her creative process, translating her gestures into canvas marks that unveil landscapes and narratives emphasizing the grandeur of the natural world and the transient nature of human experience. The heart becomes an extension of sight, and layers of color, guided by a distinctive biomorphic shape vocabulary, build up on the canvas to evoke emotions and intensify interactions. Fine embraces the unknown, allowing curiosity to guide each canvas, where the conscious and unconscious interplay leads to the exploration of new thresholds in creative expression, resulting in dreamlike imagery of mysterious environments and landscapes suggestive of fantasy realms.