Leslie Neumann and Carrie Jadus @ Nuance Galleries Tampa

Leslie Neumann and Carrie Jadus have been reviewed here before. I also interviewed Leslie last year.

Carrie Jadus is known for her paintings of local landmarks and florals. She also paints portraits of people and in this exhibit at Nuance Galleries at 804 S. Dale Mabry Ave showed some male nudes.

Carrie Jadus, "Bloom # 12"

These are beautifully designed and executed works, many of them on the decorative side. Bloom #12 on the left is a good example. Very realistic, showing reflected light, translucence and shade with rich color casts. Candy for the eye.

Carrie Jadus, (sic) "Capok in Bloom"

(sic) "Capok in Bloom" may look familiar. It is a lyrical painting of the large Kapok tree on the South side of the Saint Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts. The artist has accurately depicted it in a different, natural setting. It is the familiar recontextualized.

Carrie Jadus, "Male Nude II"

Carrie also showed several male nudes, some of her most powerful works in this show. Painterly, full of passion and life, with complex nuanced colors, these daring paintings of the male nude speak to what it means to be alive.

A fleeting gesture, the tensed-up torso, eyes closed as if dreaming, forward projection and light raking across the body, combined with the subtle contrasting blues in the background make this work.

Carrie Jadus

Leslie Neumann, "Garden of Unearthly Delights"

Leslie Neumann's landscapes are epiphanies, simultaneously personal and universal, in the form of the landscape.
Hieronymus Bosch's famous tryptich known as The Garden of Earthly Delights. The painting on the left is titled The Garden of Unearthly Delights. Bosch's tryptich begins with Adam and Eve in Paradise and ends with Hell.
Neumann's Garden is outside of linear time. It is comprised of a marshy ground, with dreamy cypress (?) trees that appear to be in groups, perhaps communicating with each other. Unearthly? There are no people. There is no Paradise, and no Hell. Behind it all, a veiled solar disc rises, its golden light pouring into the landscape.

One thing I like about Nuance Galleries is that they have artists' talks. This is something many artists try to avoid (out of fear of public speaking, or under the quaint Modernist notion that the work is singular, outside of the human fabric and should stand alone), but serves many purposes, including making a personal connection with viewers/potential buyers. 

Leslie Neumann

Congratulations to artists Carrie Jadus and Leslie Neumann, and to Nuance Galleries for a good show.

--- Luis

Ps. This show is up through this week.