Art at Elliott Fouts Gallery

Sacramento has a large number of art galleries across the city, and many of them reside in the lively area of Midtown. Next to downtown, Midtown with its many restaurants, bars and graffiti murals amongst charming wooden houses and lots of trees is a dynamic and interesting neighborhood. No doubt galleries find this area exciting. Elliott Fouts Gallery, one of the galleries in Midtown, opened in 1999 but moved to Midtown in 2012. The gallery specializes in representational landscape and still life painting and has an exhibition space with monthly shows as well as a bigger area for the regular works for sale. Since the gallery was in the midst of changing exhibitions I saw a small portion of Timothy Mulligan’s work that was up in one part of the gallery, and the brand new exhibition of paintings by Lauren Pretorius in the main exhibition space.

Me in front of Timothy Mulligans art. Photo: Virginie, 04-02-16

Timothy Mulligan, Coastal Cliff View, Northern CA, 2015, acrylic on canvas. Photo: Frida Berntson, 04-02-16

Timothy Mulligan, Lake Boats, Tahoe, 2015, acrylic on canvas. Photo: Frida Berntson, 04-02-16

Detail from Timothy Mulligan, Lake Boats, Tahoe, 2015, acrylic on canvas. Photo: Frida Berntson, 04-02-16

Timothy Mulligan, Tiscornia Park, Sacramento, 2015, acrylic on canvas. Photo: Frida Berntson, 04-02-16

Timothy Mulligan’s work is essentially inspired by the French Impressionist movement but with elements of a more expressive style with simplified forms and clear, crisp colors. At first glance Mulligan’s art comes across as very colorful but maybe a little lifeless and overly structured with diagonals and lines crossing perfectly on the canvas. But as you look closely his paintings express a sharp texture that suits very well with the overall style, and the use of different techniques as etching into the wet paint and the absence of visible brushstrokes makes the paintings come together as a whole. Mulligan is a local artist educated at Sacramento State, and his motifs are landscapes around Sacramento and the Bay Area. In Sweden artists paint local landscapes in a very specific way to express the clear and kind of cold Scandinavian light, and to compare that to Mulligan’s warm toned Californian landscape was very interesting.

Lauren Pretorius's exhibition at Elloitt Fouts Gallery. Photo: Frida Berntson, 04-02-16

Lauren Pretorius, Cracked Egg, oil on panel. Photo: Frida Berntson, 04-02-16

Detail of Lauren Pretorius, PB&J Sandwich, oil on panel. Photo: Frida Berntson, 04-02-16

Lauren Pretorius, Spoonful of Honey, oil on panel. Photo: Frida Berntson, 04-02-16

Lauren Pretorius, Fresh Lemonade, oil on panel. Photo; Frida Berntson, 04-02-16

Lauren Pretorius’s show in the exhibition space was very different from Timothy Mulligan’s art. Pretorius’s work is in the still life tradition but with a modern twist with smaller square or rectangular canvases with different objects from everyday life; chopped vegetables, a cracked egg, a glass of lemonade, an onion, an avocado and my favorite – a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The objects are beautifully modeled in a realistic manner in light and shadow. My initial thoughts from Pretorius’s art was that it is kind of dissecting the mundane in our lives and analyzing the objects we are so familiar with that we don’t notice them. For me as a foreigner some of the paintings made me think of the typical American daily life; especially the paintings with the lemonade, the honey bear, and the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But for Americans it is probably just a depiction of mundane things.

It is interesting comparing galleries and museums; museums often have an admission fee, but you feel almost always welcome there, at this particular gallery you did not feel welcome at all, even though you didn’t have to pay to see the art. Maybe you could describe this situation as what type of space is welcoming you, a public space or private?