Marilyn Holsing: It began as a test: could I create a space within and simultaneously contend with what happens on the shiny surface, as well as the distortions of glass? And what could happen outside the bell jar/cloche? The landscape elements are pure invention: they begin with abstract color blobs that I manipulate into flowers, leaves, bushes, sticks, stones, etc. Constriction adds to their drama, sometimes flowers or leaves are pressed against the glass almost straining to escape.

Part of the challenge of these pieces is making the glass transparent at the same time they depict what is reflected on the surface. I combined observation of the actual cloches in my studio with photographs of glass cloches from the internet. I was particularly interested in what happens at their edges when they seemingly disappear into the background...

Elizabeth Johnson: ...Your pieces curve forms like the warp created by Photoshop, cameras, and computers. Cézanne broke his subjects into geometric forms to make space. How does your work relate to or differ from his? Does working in continuous curving space like digital images made of billions of bits of information link you to the digital age?

Peter Van Dyck: No, not to the digital age per se. But I do think that painting can be seen as creative information processing. My understanding of Cézanne is that he saw the world through the lens of simplified geometric solids, and I am a hundred percent sympathetic to that way of understanding the physical and visual world. In fact, I find it almost impossible to register any experience without first engaging it in a tactile, volumetric way. It seems to me that Cézanne is not constrained by this need for a dominant, almost tyrannical organizational structure...

Gross McCleaf Gallery is pleased to present Paintings, a new solo exhibition by Peter Van Dyck. In his recent body of work, Van Dyck begins with an overarching spatial framework, constructing a unified field of space before turning his attention to the objects it contains. Interiors, still lifes, and thresholds unfold through measured shifts in perspective, resulting in the subtle curvature that defines his work.

Gross McCleaf Gallery is also proud to present On Longing, a new solo exhibition by Marilyn Holsing. In this body of work, Holsing begins each painting with a colored ground of layered hues, building from that base until flora, tendrils, and shadowy environments take shape. Influenced by her work with dioramas and glass cloches, she studies how light reflects, distorts, and obscures, and how a surface can both reveal and conceal what lies within.