BLUE MOUNTAIN GALLERY

Blue Mountain Gallery presents a solo exhibition of new paintings by Gina Sawin

 

Gina Sawin’s recent work reflects her ongoing interest in depicting bird groups in a moment of flight. She is drawn to patterns of avian forms and the pictorial challenge of locating them in a real and distant sky. The limited palette and pebbly surface suggest that birds and sky are inextricable, almost dissolving into one another, while the geometry of shifting lights and darks gives a sense of movement.

 

The art writer Carl Little refers to Sawin as a contemporary “animalier.” Whether it is the reflection in water of a solitary bird, or a flock moving through the sky, birds have long been her muse. Along with the formal concerns, the subject of birds allows her to explore themes of fragility and resilience: a prehistoric origin, the miracle of migration, and changing ecological sensitivities. There is, in her work, reverence for the natural order and an air of nostalgia about its deterioration.

 

In Sawin’s words, “Migrating birds seem to me a poignant reminder of the earth’s life cycles, and, in a metaphorical sense, the strength of the whole as a sum of parts. When I am working my studio, looking at each individual bird in the context of a community, I see them as pursuing the right to survive. I feel the paintings asking: Will we get where we need to go?”