Water, with its simultaneously nourishing and threatening power, has always drawn artists to it as a subject. Just in time for the beaches, lakes, and creeks to beckon this summer, two new shows at Carol Corey Fine Art, a haven of leading contemporary art in bucolic Kent, Connecticut, offer a look at artists’ varied relationships with an element that has been so central to humans throughout history.
“Many of the long-time artists in the group I represent use water as an ongoing theme in their work,” says Corey, who founded her Kent gallery in 2020 after the death of her friend and business partner Renato Danese, with whom she ran the acclaimed Chelsea gallery Danese/Corey for over two decades. “It was an obvious choice to begin with them as the foundation and use it as an opportunity to expand and discover new artists.”
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Clay Johnson, The Salt Air, 2024, acrylic on canvas.
The first show, “By the Sea”, is a group exhibition featuring work by eleven artists who work is related to the sea and the seashore. The show ranges from the otherworldly small-scale paintings of coastal Maine by Dozier Bell to the sunbaked abstract paintings of
Clay Johnson to the intricate yet flowing charcoals of Rick Shaefer. The exhibition moves from effervescent summer memories of the shore to contemplations of the sea’s daunting power, which takes on new meaning as the effects of climate change roll out in real time.
Corey continues the theme with a solo show from Matthias Meyer, one of the artists featured in “By the Sea”. “Lakes of Light” showcases Meyer’s delicate balance between realism and abstraction. “Matthias’ work is a wonderful marriage between medium and subject matter,” says Corey. “His paintings can be read as abstract or as a multidimensional perspective of water at the surface, underneath it, or in its reflections.”
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Courtesy Carol Corey Fine Art
Matthias Meyer, Small Lake, 2024, oil on linen.
The German-born artist, who studied with Gerhard Richter, takes an approach to his technique that emulates the properties of water itself. Diluted oil paints run and fall across the canvas, investing the medium with the transparency and ephemeral qualities of watercolor. The result is rich, magical, dreamlike environments filled with the perception of water, light, and color. Both mysterious and revealing, the water’s surface reflects its surroundings and simultaneously offers a glimpse into a realm below. Enigmatic, distorted images of decomposing tree trunks emerge from the depths, while reeds, water lilies, and grasses thrive above.
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After contemplating the mysteries and magnetism of water, visitors can explore Carol Corey Fine Art’s surrounding complex, Kent Barns. A village of restored antique barns, Kent Barns is now home to a farmers market, general store, bakery, bookstore, and more. For art lovers looking to make a day of it, Corey says that walkable Kent has become a mini enclave of fine art galleries who are helping put the town on the art world map. “There’s a community of people here who are familiar with the New York art scene, and have chosen to make this beautiful corner of the world their home."
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