The Sidney and Berne Davis Art Center offers two unique art exhibitions every month.
In January, Visions of the Underworld by Danielle Branchaud will be featured in the Grand Atrium. In the Capital Gallery on the second floor, Sanctus Carnem by Ndola Pensy will be showing. The opening reception takes place on Friday, Jan. 1 from 6 to 10 p.m. and on Jan. 8 during the rescheduled Art Walk.
After a lifetime of exploring the inner worlds of the mind, local artist Danielle Branchaud has built a tremendous body of work that brings personal and universal dreamscapes to life.
For the first time each of her series’ will be represented in the same space, filling the main gallery of the Davis Art Center with an extraordinary and haunting narrative.
Visions of the Underworld is not only intended as a retrospective of past works, but also the debut of a new painting series not yet fully witnessed.
Take a journey into the depths of the human experience through the unique perspective of one of Southwest Florida’s most notorious surrealists, whom with every brushstroke is dedicated to sharing her visions of an alternate reality. Spectators are bound to be drawn by her ability to manipulate acrylics into realistic figurative paintings, and further mesmerized by the intense introspection and imagination behind every one of them.
Watercolor, ink, gold and silver leaf are Ndola Pensy’s artistic tools. Since spending time in Russia as a child she has been fascinated by the power light has to transform a moment from ordinary to fearful awe. Exterior facades, rizas, or oklads are usually highly embellished and often multi-dimensional.
The precious metals illuminated by candles and as momentary phenomena become distorted, gleaming lures for the imagination. Within her narrative, it is not, however, limited to the monumental decoration of church interiors and instead dances on the edge of the profane.
Pensy’s work explores the relationship between light and meaningful introspection. With influences from the Macedonian and Palaeologan age, new stories are crafted from both constructed and discovered references. Within this work, what starts out as triumph soon becomes corrupted into a manifesto of grief, desperation, and heartache, leaving only a sense of nihilism and the possibility of a new beginning.
Both shows will be on display through Jan. 27.
The Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center is located at 2301 First St. in downtown Fort Myers. For more info, visit www.sbdac.com or call 239-333-1933.
