the endless river of dreams
June 14 - June ?
Opening Reception on Arts Night Out
“The Endless River of Dreams” is an exhibition that addresses several themes: dreaming, the human experience, liminality, and artificial intelligence. These works grapple with the concept of what is dreaming and what is reality. This is especially poignant in today’s world with the newly advanced artificial intelligence machines that generate images. AI has made us question what is Art and how do we navigate the complex ethics surrounding machine learning and image generation. How do our dreams define our waking life? Are our dreams any less real than “reality”? At one point, humans merely dreamt of a day where we would be able to harness the technology that we currently have access to, and now here we are with big questions facing what this new intelligence means to the human experience and therefore ‘Art’.
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Dani Schmidt is a mixed media painter and illustrator from Holyoke, MA. Their works are all created with mixed media as they feel that different media expresses different moods and themes. Many of the works that address the theme of AI and dreaming are india ink on paper. The larger canvas works are also mixed media but created with acrylic paint and wax pastel. Many of these works in this collection are considered experimental by the artist; they have tried new processes and combined with something tried and true to explore new ways of making as a reflection to this brave new world we all find ourselves in today.
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Elizabeth Meyersohn is oil painter from New York but lives in Florence, MA. Elizabeth’s work is an excellent addition to this show with her high-keyed pink paintings, phases of dawn colors and some luscious depictions of the moon. Her work has a dreamy and liminal quality that reflects and compliments Dani’s paintings. Her work is also compelling in contrast to the other works in the show because of her striking use of color. These works are a form of self-portraits and self-reflection that echo the theme of dreams. Elizabeth primarily works with oil on canvas, both large and small scale.