{"id":988,"date":"2015-01-28T11:43:42","date_gmt":"2015-01-28T16:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/artsspotlight\/?p=988"},"modified":"2015-01-28T13:58:29","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T18:58:29","slug":"grubbs-gallery-presents-rhys-davies-and-jimmy-ilson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/artsspotlight\/2015\/01\/28\/grubbs-gallery-presents-rhys-davies-and-jimmy-ilson\/","title":{"rendered":"Grubbs Gallery Presents Rhys Davies and Jimmy Ilson"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Display: February 3-27
\nReception: Saturday, Feb. 21, 1:30-3:30 p.m.<\/p>\n

\""Mwyar<\/a>
“Mwyar Duon” (Blackberries) Acrylic on Canvas. Rhys Davies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two friends and fellow artists\u2014who use their art to examine the figurative and ephemeral\u2014are collaborating on an exhibit that will be on display in the Grubbs Gallery through the month of February.<\/p>\n

Freelance book illustrator and designer Rhys Davies<\/a> uses drawings and collages, dotted with over-sized figures, to create works with both literal and figurative meanings. In his artist’s statement, he noted that he has been inspired by landscapes and the history of his native Wales. \u201cHaving lived for years in the countryside, I feel I can draw upon a \u2018deep well\u2019 of subject matter and imagery,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Mr. Davies, who lives in Amherst, has a degree in fine art with a specialty in painting, and studied at both the Cardiff College of Art, and Wimbledon School of Art in London, from which he received a BA with honors. He has exhibited at schools such as Wimbledon SFA, Ruskin College, and Middlesex University Gallery, as well as several galleries in Denmark. He has also shown at locally at Wunderarts, Pineapple Dance Studio, and Hope and Feathers, all in Amherst.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Caged Bird, mixed media drawing. Jimmy Ilson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jimmy Ilson’s most recent\u00a0 drawings, assemblages, and sculptures are visual paradoxes that often reflect the nature of Taoist philosophy. Last year, he headed a project in\u00a0Easthampton High School\u00a0called \u201cHow do You Say Goodbye?\u201d where students in his\u00a0advanced fine arts class scrawled phrases all over their school building, which was slated to be demolished.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you\u2019re doing here is this kind of momentary thing. It\u2019s ephemeral,\u201d Mr. Ilson was quoted as saying in a Daily Hampshire Gazette\u00a0<\/em>article <\/a>about the project. \u201cIt\u2019s like fireworks \u2014 it\u2019s there and then it\u2019s gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Ilson\u00a0<\/strong>graduated from the University of Wisconsin\u00a0 in Madison with an BFA in painting and earned an MFA in\u00a0 Printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute. Having grown up in New York City, he notes that early visits to Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica” in the Museum of Modern Art were some of the most formative aspects of\u00a0 his artistic life.\u00a0 He presently teaches art at Cathedral\u00a0 High School and also teaches T\u2019ai chi throughout the Pioneer Valley.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Display: February 3-27 Reception: Saturday, Feb. 21, 1:30-3:30 p.m. Two friends and fellow artists\u2014who use their art to examine the figurative and ephemeral\u2014are collaborating on an exhibit that will be on display in the Grubbs Gallery through the month of February. Freelance book illustrator and designer Rhys Davies uses drawings and collages, dotted with … Continue reading Grubbs Gallery Presents Rhys Davies and Jimmy Ilson<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-news","category-grubbs-gallery"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/artsspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/artsspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/artsspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/artsspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/artsspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=988"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/artsspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1008,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/artsspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988\/revisions\/1008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/artsspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/artsspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/artsspotlight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}