RARE Gallery is pleased to present Quiet Please, a group exhibition featuring contemplative new works by artists Holly Coulis, Matthew F Fisher, Carrie Gundersdorf, Mike Hein, Elisa Lendvay, Matthew Northridge, and Jason Silva. The show was organized by Matthew F Fisher in collaboration with the gallery.

Slow down, come closer, and look. Did you see this? Simple observations of life can cause us to stop and reflect on our own situations, actions, and beliefs. The artists participating in Quiet Please ask this of you – to pause and to ponder. What you see is what you notice. Still, if you look longer, you might understand more. Objects can become ideas, found can be made to look constructed, and the perceived is always more interesting than the real.

The fracturing of ready-made images that distinguish the collages of Matthew Northridge explores the relationship between the natural world and human intervention. Similarly, Mike Hein’s sculptures blend the natural, the man-made, and artist intent so that one does not know where one attribute begins and another one ends. Elisa Lendvay’s combines of street finds and studio materials create new hybrids whose functions are as unknown as the shapes themselves are familiar.

The heraldic still life paintings of Jason Silva function as both pattern and allegory, while Holly Coulis’ paintings of everyday objects remain strangely familiar yet coolly distant. Matthew F Fisher’s stylized landscapes strike a balance between the dreamt and the experienced. In contrast, Carrie Gundersdorf’s richly colored drawings of deep space document a world outside of our realm but fully within our galaxy.

All of the artists in Quiet Please ask viewers to become one with what is in front of them – to embark on a Zen exercise in understanding what, where, and who we are. Now, quiet please . . . there is a work of art in front of you. What do you see?