Eyes On The Natural World: John Alexander • Jill Musnicki • Jean Pagliuso • Clifford Ross • Michelle Stuart • Jane Wilson

From November 16, 2007 through January 31, 2008 The Drawing Room is pleased to present "Eyes on the Natural World", an exhibition of recent works by John Alexander, Jill Musnicki, Jean Pagliuso, Clifford Ross, Michelle Stuart and Jane Wilson juxtaposed with select historical drawings from France and India. The contemporary artists’ exploration of nature - bees, butterflies, birds, poultry, the ocean and sky - has inspired the installation of their work alongside counterpoints by artists with similar interests from different times and places. Committed to showing today’s artists with those of the last two centuries, The Drawing Room hopes to further the discourse about the artistic and historical contexts of drawing from life by focusing on similarities and differences of sensibility, training and technique.

The salon style installation of this material invites visual dialogue between unlikely neighbors. Jane Wilson’s watercolors of the quintessential Long Island light as it falls on the inlets and beaches of the East End are paired with mysterious nocturnal landscapes by Henri Marchal (French 1878- 1949). Carried away by the natural world which they capture en plein air in pastel or watercolor, both Marchal and Wilson are romantics. Compared to the dark, gothic charcoals of Marchal, Wilson’s long practice with watercolor under the open skies of Watermill preserves the action of a changing atmosphere with a fresh, modern abstraction.

See below for full press release and selected works.