From the treasure house of imagery arises an authenticity within Gerald Donato’s work, amplified by his sense of material and unrestricted by conventional methods. Wooden doors replace canvases, and house paint supplants acrylic as subtle lines of wood grain peer beneath cartoonish scenes. Cut-out canvas exaggerates surface, paralleling shapes and forms within the paintings. The contrast between two- and three-dimensional spaces is reproduced in his imagined characters, ranging from smiling Buddhas, muted nudes, bowties, and wonky figures. The characters dance along the work’s surface: their narratives communicating comedy and wit, laced with implications of race, culture, religion, and alienation. Each piece requires an intense engagement; as we assess each scene, unravelling the complexities of characters and nuanced art references, we undergo a deeper process of inner-reflection. The paintings exist mirror-like; created years ago, they adapt and challenge their current age as relevancy and historical narrative merge.

The Chicago-born artist (1941) received his Master of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees from Northern Illinois University, and later earned his Master of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was among the core founding teachers of VCUarts (originally known as the Richmond Professional Institute), where he taught for 38 years in the Painting and Printmaking Department. Among many accolades, he received two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and a VMFA Professional Fellowship. He was a founding member of 1708 Gallery, a non-profit contemporary art venue in Richmond, VA. Donato passed away in 2010 in Richmond.

Carolyn Case uses rich patterning and intense colors to convey a spiritual and psychological experience. Based in Maryland, Case has travelled extensively to Iran and Egypt, incorporating Middle Eastern textiles into invented landscapes. Establishing texture through varied, layered line work, she allows aggravated strokes to form strange plants and ombre urns, collaged against a pointillist sky or indiscernible figure. Her indiscriminate use of color and compiled symbols intentionally muddles distinctions between East and West, Earth and Space, Physical and Spiritual.

Case received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from California State University and Master of Fine Arts from Maryland Institute, College of Art (1994, 1997).  She is the recipient of fellowships from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the Maryland Institute of Art and Vermont Studio Center, as well as a residency from the Kanoria Art Center in Ahmedabad, India. She has exhibited at the Katzen Art Center, the Corcoran Gallery, Hemphill Fine Arts in Washington, DC and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California.  She currently lives in Baltimore where she teaches painting and drawing at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Deborah Ellis effortlessly manipulates watercolor in her striking renditions of nature. Realistically rendered, her paintings impart an atmospheric nature as deep blues and earthy greens bleed into creamy white paper. The work exists as a moment of bliss: portraying serene ponds and blooming flowers which appear to ebb and flow across the paper. With a slight hand and observant eye, she paints an environment both cool and peaceful yet richly captivating. She states “the indirect view – memory and refraction – coalesces for me in ponds and sea, clouds, ice, glass, windows. Trees (solid and textured) and water (ephemeral and textured) are a large part of my subject matter. Watercolor, with its possibilities of hovering, layered washes, continues to fascinate me as my medium.”

Ellis received her Bachelor of Arts in Art History at Radcliffe College. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia, where she has taught at The Art League since 1989. Her work is in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Library of Congress, Washington Post, all, Washington, DC; Markel Corporation, Reed Smith, Medical College of Virginia, McGuire Woods, and Sheltering Arms, all, Richmond, VA, among others.