Kathryn Markel Fine Arts is pleased to present five artists in a group show entitled “Illusion of Life”. This exhibition celebrates the challenge and restrictions artists encounter in their desire to convey motion and to give life to the canvas. The concept to suggest motion has been explored throughout history in the works of numerous artists. Each of these artists; Jean Arnold, Eric Blum, Don Scott Macdonald, Karl Pilato and Deborah Zlotsky explore this challenge and convey a unique sense of movement. Unified by this endeavor, Arnolds’ works evokes the rapid almost noisy city life while, Don Scott Macdonald depicts an ethereal landscape in movement. Eric Blum’s indistinct, serene works evoke a sense of silence as both Pilato and Zlotsky provoke rhythmic movement, each suggesting motion giving the illusion of life.

Jean Arnold’s work is extracted from the experience of mobility, the velocity of travel – its visual bombardment, and its alteration of spatial perceptions. Jean Arnold received her MFA from Johnson State College and currently resides in Salt Lake City Utah. She has had solo and group shows in California, New York, and Georgia.

Eric Blum’s work comes from the longing to capture what one sees from the corner of an eye; the illusions and misunderstandings of the irretrievable glimpse, evoking a sense of silence. Blum’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, on both the East and West Coasts. He currently lives and works in New York City

Don Scott Macdonald’s work explores the juxtaposition of stillness with movement, of representation with abstraction, and of the earth with the ethereal. Macdonald was recently selected by the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art as one of the forty most influential painters on the West Coast. He lives and works in Sonoma County, California.

Karl Pilato’s work strives to evoke the light and space of nature, to be in continual motion. Rhythmic structure emerges, building areas of density and openness. Pilato received his MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston and currently resides in California.

Deborah Zlotsky says of her work, “I work responsively, constantly altering and accumulating relationships. As I adjust one relationship, another slips out of balance.” Adjacent Possibilities borrows a scientific term, which refers to the way organisms and systems keep shifting away from a designated path, often creating new and more complex relationships as an outcome. Deborah Zlotsky has exhibited extensively on the East Coast, she currently resides in New York