Description

Art Exhibition & Opening 

Object / Image: John Gibson & Andrew Watel 

Opening Reception: Thursday, April 24, 2025 | 5 - 8 pm 

On View: April 24 - June 7, 2025 

Regular Hours: 11:00am - 6:00pm Tuesday - Saturday & by appointment.

Nick Ryan Gallery presents Object / Image, an exhibition featuring painters John Gibson and Andrew Watel. While both artists take a similar approach to subject matter, their investigations unfold in distinct ways. John Gibson has been painting spheres for nearly 40 years. However, the “balls” in his work are not derived from baseballs, billiard balls, or traditional still life arrangements. Instead, they serve as a conceptual framework—an ongoing exploration of form, light, and space. His use of light and dark to create volume, cast shadows to define space, and decorative elements to introduce color recalls the techniques of Baroque still life painters from Spain and the Netherlands. “Essentially, what I’m doing is making a minimalist work with the tools of much older European painting. I want them both.” - John Gibson Andrew Watel also does not work from life but instead relies on measurement and memory. He selects anonymous, utilitarian objects—a fan, a spring, a tire—for their formal qualities of shape, color, and geometry. Beginning with precise measurements, he establishes a framework, adjusts the composition, and invents the light. His process is one of searching, where forms emerge and disappear through drawing and erasure. The history of the surface reveals both certainty and doubt, transforming the subject into the work itself.