Beginning July 25, 2024, Forum Gallery presents Out of town, an exhibition about the human desire to escape our busy urban lives for the reverie of landscape vistas and seasonal adventures. By the hand of a diverse selection of visionary contemporary and twentieth-century artists, the twenty-nine paintings, works on paper, and textiles comprising the exhibition present visual interpretations of landscapes and nature’s seasonal offerings inspired by natural subjects from coast-to-coast and faraway shores, as well as expressions of the artists' own personal introspection. Out of town continues through Saturday, September 7, 2024.

Coastal gardens, forest woodlands, and waterfalls by Robert Bauer (b. 1942), Bernard Karfiol (1886-1952), and Craig McPherson (b. 1948) are refreshing summertime scenes, while expansive rural vistas and working farms captured with seasonal atmosphere command our attention in works by William Beckman (b. 1942), Oscar Bluemner (1867-1938), Charles Burchfield (1893-1967), Gregory Gillespie (1936-2000) and Anthony Mitri (b. 1951). Beach scenes by David Levine (1926-2009) depicting fun, sun-soaked festivities present in stark contrast to Rance Jones’ (b. 1965) watercolors highlighting the barebones maritime life in Cuba.

The experience of being immersed in nature is at the core of Brian Rutenberg’s (b. 1965) emotive landscape abstractions and is fertilizer for psychological expression in works by Alyssa Monks (b. 1977) and Susan Hauptman (1947-2015). For Paul Fenniak (b. 1965) and Alan Feltus (b. 1943), the elements of nature encourage the dreamlike narratives in their paintings, while for Linden Frederick (b. 1953) and Michael C. Thorpe (b. 1993), nature sets the stage for stories about leaving town for various escapes.

Nature’s bounty is an inspiration for G. Daniel Massad (b. 1946), Claudio Bravo (1936-2011) and Guillermo Muñoz Vera (b. 1956) whose poetic still-life arrangements featuring local harvests transport us to places across the globe. Getting us there are Tula Telfair’s (b. 1961) atmospheric impressions evocative of aerial views from an airplane window and the excitement of going out of town.