Postmasters Gallery is pleased to announce a sencond solo show of paintings by Steve Mumford.

The exhibition will open on February 16 and will be on view until March 16, 2002. The opening reception for the artist is scheduled for Saturday, February 16. between 6 and 8 pm.

In his new series of paintings, Peaceable Kingdom, Steve Mumford continues his investigation of the natural world and mankind¹s place within it. Each painting features a meeting of some sort between humans and animals, some with art historical precedents, some based on factual events, and others purely fanciful. Inspired by the work of illustrators like Frank Frazetta, Mumford¹s paintings seek to reintroduce the pleasures of narrative illustration into the gallery context, highlighting the artist¹s interest in the dangers, mysteries, and fragilities of nature. His paintings often depict remote or previously inaccessible areas in the process of being explored or exploited, thus bringing people increasingly and unexpectedly into contact with wild animals. As civilization spreads and the last wild places become isolated into smaller and smaller pockets, these random confrontations must seem strange and poignant, perhaps the last to occur for many species. The images are derived from many sources, including Mumford¹s own photographs. In his use of paint, however, Mumford avoids the distancing effects of photorealism, preferring the more emotionally visceral qualities of a realism tinged with expressionist paint handling, colors saturated with glazes. In a current interview with Bradley Rubenstein on ArtKrush.com, Mumford states: "[I want] to inspire in the viewer some actual sense of drama of place, the salty sea air, the lash of the wind. I once snorkeled with a Humpback whale, off the coast of NewfoundlandþThe fact that this type of imagery seems, to the art world, more appropriate to the sides of vans, makes it all the more important to put out there, as an argument for meaningful, unironic emotional experience."