The Chazan Gallery at Wheeler is presenting a group show titled On Nature, featuring works by artists Adrianne Evans, Brooke Hammerlee, Mara Metcalf, Roberta Shapiro and Todd Moore from February 19 to March 18, 2010. There will be an opening reception for the artists on Friday, February 19, from 5 – 7 p.m. The public is invited. The exhibition will close on Thursday, March 18, which coincides with Gallery Night.

Adrianne Evans uses the study of geology, astronomy, and botany to find out how the universe works and her studio work explores similar possibilities presented by these fields of study. Creating something out of what seems to be nothing, “I pretend I am ‘Mother Nature’ and the universe follows my rules.” Evans’ medium is predominantly glass, because it has the ability to be “opaque, translucent or transparent, rough or smooth, colored or clear; even all within the same piece.” In this exhibition, Evans works closely with organic materials such as tree leaves, ‘which offer a continually growing range of possibilities and discovery.’

Evans received her MFA in Glass at the Rhode Island School of Design, and her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions, including Chazan Gallery, Newport Art Museum, The Bristol Museum and the Providence Art Club. She is currently on the Glass Department faculty at RISD.

Brooke Hammerlee is a self-described ‘painter, working in the medium of photography’. Paying close attention to light, and the translation of light into color, Hammerlee explores the visual world between nature and abstraction. With her formal background in painting, she pays close attention to formal elements that she can capture through the lens, focusing on “the isolating and organizing of form and color space.” “I am drawn to relationships which describe a consciousness of the unity of elements not things.”

Hammerlee received her BFA in Photography from the University Without Walls. She is currently the photographer to the Brown University Art History and Visual Art Department as well as the Bell Gallery, and has worked closely with the RISD Design Museum in the photography of their collections. Hammerlee’s work has been shown in numerous exhibitions throughout New England.

Mara Metcalf is currently working on a series on paper that explores the theme of landscape and memory. The images she depicts refer to existing sites such as the waterfalls and mountains along the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon, but these images are not translated literally onto paper. Using old maps as her ‘canvas’, Metcalf is able to use ink on paper to rework patterns in nature, calling attention to the way that we think and interact with the natural world. “While I am interested in depicting a sense of place, I also hope to get at what is essentially invisible.”

Metcalf received her BFA from RISD, and her MFA from Tufts University School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Her work has been shown at many galleries in Providence and Boston and is part of several permanent collections including the RISD Museum. She is on the faculty of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Roberta Shapiro uses embroidery as a visual language that enables her to see and interpret her surroundings. Using thread and cotton, she depicts common, often overlooked, images such as small trees, or lone standing houses. In creating these images, “I recognize them and in the process, myself.” Through the layers of textures and description, “I hone the images as I stitch.” Through her work, Shapiro hopes to “articulate a moment of interior revelation found in images that might otherwise be forgotten.

Shapiro is a jewelry designer, and this is her first gallery show of her embroidery work. She graduated from Skidmore College with a Bachelor of Science and she has taught in Industrial Design at RISD.

Todd Moore is showing paintings and ink drawings that ‘represent a compression of all elements down to fundamentals, in a literal, metaphorical and painting sense.” Using simple materials, such as India ink on paper or paint on canvas, he captures the eroded and exposed stone and glacial debris found on the New England coast. Moore explains that “The intersection of perception, representational documentation and autobiographical expression have always provided the conceptual basis for his work, as well as the struggle between the traditional romance of painting and the distance of modern irony.”

Moore has an MFA from RISD and a BA from Evergreen State College. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the US and is included in several corporate collections. He is a member of the faculty of the Division of Foundation Studies at RISD.