“Beyond”

August 18 – September 17, 2023

Beyond is an exhibition featuring the work of John Plunkett and Greg St. John on view at Chroma Fine Art Gallery now through September 17. Curator Rita Baunok paired the two painters for their simpatico color palette, warmth, depth, and exploration of what lies beyond an abstracted surface.

John Plunkett’s decades-long artmaking practice has produced notable works in a variety of mediums. Early in his career, a suite of drawings based on his experience in Vietnam travelled around the world, and now resides in the collection of The National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago, IL. For this exhibition at Chroma, Rita Baunok showcases paintings from two different series, as well as some of Plunkett’s wood sculptures. In one series of paintings, Plunkett situations bright, beautiful rectangles of color in relation to each other. In the other, he probes the psychological concept of a house by considering its shape and its function through the atmosphere and forms that lie within and without the sheltering structure.

Greg St. John is similarly concerned with the psychological dimensions that can be evoked and experienced beyond the surface of an artwork. Combining a background in archeology, fine art, woodblock printing and architectural woodworking, the mixed media paintings on display in Beyond present more than meets the eye. Baunok carefully selected works on paper from St. John’s “Ethereal World Series,” which developed as a result of the Covid pandemic. These pieces are deeply abstract, somehow both soft and grainy, and seem to exist outside of our general notions of time and space.

Artists:
John Plunkett
Greg St. John