BRATTLEBORO — From April 27 to June 9, Mitchell-Giddings Fine Arts presents David Rohn: Watercolors, a gallery-wide exhibition of paintings spanning more than four decades. An opening reception will take place Saturday, April 27, from 5 to 7 p.m., and the gallery will host an artist talk on May 18 at 5 p.m.
Growing up in Ludington, Mich., Rohn was accepted into the University of Michigan's College of Architecture and Design on the strength of a portfolio of watercolors, where he earned his bachelor's and master's in painting and printmaking. Much of his student work was featured in juried shows throughout the Midwest.
As a formative artist, he taught first at Windham College in Putney as the chair of the art department, then at Drew University, New York University, the National Academy of Design, and Queens College. He still resides and continues to paint in Putney.
Rohn's watercolors come from a deep sensitivity to the structure of a painting: its formal, architectural structure based on shapes, color, and spatial relationships.
In his artist's statement, Rohn said he believes “the learning of art is a very intriguing thing in itself. A wonderful thing about a painting is that it is all there, all the time.
“The parts are in perpetual conversation with each other, they form alliances with other parts, patterns, symmetries, currents of energy and dissolve into the whole. Unlike the other arts, it is outside of time, not sequential. It does not require that the recipient try to match its metabolism.”
The majority of watercolors in the exhibit are still lifes, deceptively simple, created from common materials and objects shuffled about in his studio or which have landed on a kitchen shelf or windowsill, never pre-arranged.
“A David Rohn watercolor painting shifts our sensibilities to where ordinary becomes elegant,” the gallery said in a news release. “We move through space in a new way. That's what art does, and Rohn leads us to that place.”