Pretty Please           
New work from Shawn McNulty and Scott Wenner at Rosalux Gallery
       
Make it pretty, please. It's rule one for painters Shawn McNulty and Scott Wenner.  They may maintain disparate styles and approaches but the root philosophy is the same, which is a belief in the power of beauty in art and the necessity of a painting to be first and foremost aesthetically pleasing. Before a work can challenge you, delight you, depress you, or repulse you, it must have your undivided attention.  And everyone knows, only the beautiful get attention.

Shawn McNulty (www.shawnmcnulty.com)  has been a founding member of Rosalux since it opened in 2002.  His new work has taken on more of a simplified composition, with many coming across as abstract landscapes.  He is still using his vibrant colors in more of a color field format instead of the more chaotic arrangements of multicolored geometric shapes of past works.  He works exclusively with palette knives now, so thick layers of acrylic and pumice and are applied, scraped off, reapplied, sliced off, etc.  The color fields interplay with each other, attempting to find common ground resulting in complex edges.  The process continues until a solution is found, always applying and mixing paint directly on the canvas, scraping away layers to reveal the ghostly characters of the previous.  McNulty is also working with Miami Art Group Gallery now, and his work received much praise during Art Basel in December 2008, and there will be a solo show at this gallery in 2009 or early 2010. 
                       
Scott Wenner's (www.scottwenner.com) newest work involves more explorations of geological phenomenon and natural history. Additionally, an interest in unanswered questions and unlearned lessons has taken root in many new pieces. Unlearned lessons are evident in a new series of ink paintings of ruined structures entitled "The Architecture of Defeat," and unanswered questions are seen in several new pieces involving sacred sites, and objects.  Wenner continues to make use of a wide range of materials and formulas, sometimes slowly building up layers over months of work on a single painting, and other times executing ink or gouache paintings in a single sitting. In all of this recent work, there remains a pervasive fascination with how emotion is assigned to the inanimate. From the gloom and desperation of an iceberg portrait to unnerving warnings in images of craters and calderas.

Where: Rosalux Gallery
1011 Washington Ave. South
Minneapolis, MN 55415                              
http://www.rosaluxgallery.com                  

When: March 4th – 31st, 2009
Opening reception with the artists on Saturday, March 7th, from 7-11 pm.

Gallery hours: Wed and Thurs: 12 to 8 pm, Sat and Sun: Noon to 5 pm

Admission Free