Creating The Illusion of Light: Contemporary Landscape Painters

Fred Somers, concerns himself and the others he teaches to approach landscape painting like a spiritual quest. Kami Mendlik twists the illusion of light into something concrete that can be put onto canvas with a calculated recipe of pigment and paint. 

Creating The Illusion of Light puts Somers and Mendlik’s work together for the first time. This exhibition is meant to orient visitors to The Poetry of Nature - Hudson River School Paintings from the New-York Historical Society, pointing out the subtle, almost invisible techniques landscape painters rely on to make their work appear the way it does. Somers and Mendlik, at times mentor and mentee for one another, have devoted their lives to teaching others how to take what nature does naturally and convert it to canvas.

Museum Hours

Tuesday - Sunday: 10am - 5pm

Image:  Frederick D. Somers, Blooming with the Ancients, 2019. Pastel on Canson paper, 22-karot gold leaf, mounted on gator board.