Artists Are In Their Elements

The image is easy enough to read. It’s a plane with exhaust trails streaking past the moon. But under Hayward Gatling’s gaze the two objects in the sky are not as dissimilar as they first appear. The moon’s and the plane’s hues are the same. Both, under closer scrutiny, seem almost as luminous and ephemeral as the exhaust trails, which will soon dissipate in the wind. Gatling’s treatment of all the elements of the photograph as simply objects in the sky, like clouds, brings them together.

“Land Sea Sky,” on view now at the River Street Gallery in Fairhaven Furniture through Aug. 23, brings together the work of five artists — Gatling, Anne Doris-Eisner, Joyce Greenfield, Ellen Hoverkamp, and Margot Nimirosk i — who share an absorbing interest in the world around them. This absorption translates to the artists not simply documenting their subjects, but transforming them, shaping them to their personal visions while hewing close to the truth. All of the natural subjects, from birds to wood to ocean waves, are instantly recognizable for what they are. But the pieces in the River Street Gallery are a good fit for their location. Much like some of the furniture at Fairhaven Furniture, in which the craftspeople lean into an idiosyncratic piece of wood or stone to make a striking piece of furniture, the artists revel in the textures of their subjects, allows us to see the subjects in a new way.

In her depictions of wood, Anne Doris-Eisner’s brush seems to crawl into every wrinkle of bark, move over every curve in an exposed root system. Her black and white images make it easier to focus on the details of the wood’s texture more easily than even a photograph might allow. There’s no extra information to get in the way — not the color of the bark, not the surrounding landscape, not any animal life. There’s just the wood itself, and in Doris-Eisner’s images, whether they are of gnarled branches, or a twisted trunks, or even (in an interesting departure) churning ocean waves, her brush strokes are enough.

Similarly, with her brush, Joyce Greenfield ably conveys the energy and movement of waves. Her images — particularly of some more towering waves that one hopes Greenfield was not in close proximity to observe — capture the beauty but also the raw power of the ocean. We love to look at it, go swimming in it, maybe even sail on it. Whatever the case, Greenfield also reminds us that the ocean is always, even on the calmest days, just a little bit dangerous.

Margot Nimiroski’s images seem to move as their subjects would. Her painting of fog is filled with dynamism and even a little menace.

Even Ellen Hovercamp’s images, inspired by still lifes, avoid much of the fustiness of that genre. There is something modern, maybe a little cheeky, even, about the way her images are put together. But it’s still the attention to detail that matters the most, the way we can see every leaf, every petal. It’s almost as if we could reach into the image and take it.

“Land Sea Sky” runs at the River Street Gallery in Fairhaven Furniture, 72 Blatchley Ave., through Aug. 23. Visit Fairhaven Furniture’s website for hours and more information.