EVER-CHANGING: NEW PAINTINGS BY ROBIN BRAUN, FLOATS : ACRYLIC SCULPTURE BY CHRISTIAN HAUB AND MORE ADVENTURES IN STRUCTURE AND LIGHT: PAINTINGS BY RUBY PALMER AT THE PAGE BOND GALLERY FRIDAY, APRIL 10, 2015.

The Page Bond Gallery is pleased to present Ever-changing: New Paintings by Robin Braun, Floats: Acrylic Sculpture by Christian Haub and More Adventures in Structure and Light: Paintings by Ruby Palmer, Friday, May 15, 2015 from 6 to 8 PM . The exhibition will run May 15 to June 12, 2015.

Robin Braun’s seascapes portray the Atlantic Ocean with expert precision and striking detail. Based on a weeklong exploration along the beaches of the Outer Banks, these oil paintings demonstrate Braun’s deep understanding of the ocean and its daily transformations between dawn and dusk. According to Braun, “It was a new (and surprising) experience for me to see the ocean from dawn until dark and see all of the permutations the sky and water go through in one day, and the truly dramatic differences in mood that accompany those changes.” At the same time, she is also intrigued by the delicate relationship between the ocean and weather, which she portrays with notable prowess. In some works, a stormy, ominous sky hovers over the turbulent sea; in others, the peaceful, glistening water reflects a clear sky above. In each case, the mood is palpable, as Braun’s stunningly photorealistic style captures every nuance in the sea’s color, texture, and behavior. Though small in size, these paintings fully convey the vastness of the ocean, portraying on a powerfully intimate scale its capacity for both terrifying violence and beautiful stillness.

Although Christian Haub began his career as an abstract painter in the 1980s, he is best known today for his vibrantly colored acrylic “Floats.” First debuted in 1990, the Floats derive their name from the way they appear to magically hover over the walls that support them. Haub creates these sculptures like playful collages, cutting and moving the colored planes in experimental arrangements before fixing them into asymmetrical, rectilinear forms. Upon installation, he turns to light—both natural and artificial—to maximize his works’ chromatic possibilities. The intersecting pieces cast colored shadows across each other and onto the wall, while the varying opacity and thickness of the acrylic slabs further intensifies the works’ dynamic luminosity. These Floats spotlight the interaction of color, light, and surface, since the refracted hues surrounding the objects are as much a part of the artwork as the objects themselves. Haub notes, “When my wife, Vera Miljkovic, photographs them she has the problem of where to focus. There is the physical surface of the plastic, and then there is the colored light cast behind it on the wall…. [Y]ou look both at and through the works.” With his Floats, Haub has managed to transform store-bought sheets of plastic into ineffably glowing, multifaceted, and polychromatic works of art.

Ruby Palmer’s paintings, much like her constructions, installations, and animal watercolors, transform the everyday into a world of imagination, play, and discovery. Although they initially began as preparatory sketches for larger wooden pieces, the paintings have come to stand on their own as expressive works of art. Their whimsical subject matter is loosely based on the artist’s surroundings in upstate New York, and it is often domestic. Yet Palmer’s scenes turn the familiar into the amusingly strange and unfamiliar: a pair of stilts elevates a quilt, drapes are suspended in trapeze-like arrangements, rooms become surreal stage sets, and filtered light produces uncanny shadows. “I take many liberties,” Palmer explains. “Finding intriguing worlds beneath floor boards and behind walls that reflect history and function and style.” As such, her paintings are refreshing and stimulating, reinventing the structures and systems of daily life that audiences may take for granted. By transforming ordinary objects into playful, imaginative structures,Palmer’s art inspires a sense of discovery and exploration—an invitation to probe beneath the mundane surface of the spaces we inhabit.