Sheri Rush’s first solo exhibition at Hyde Park Art Center, Portals of Discovery, features large-scale paintings which address the diminishing experience of nature, and specifically, the layers through which landscape is now viewed. We experience the sublime through the phone camera lens, pointed through the window of the car, train, or plane during our travels. The vast world becomes a blur, moving away from description to the communication of pure visual experience.
These layers can make it difficult to enter a painting. However, space exists where these windows become portals, giving access to a place where the imaginary is in a perpetual state of emerging and dissolving. This experience creates a sense of familiarity yet of dislocation. To fracture our sense of place is a certain dissolution of self, invoking a transformation, a portal of discovery, a spiritual quest, or a shamanic journey.
