08/04/2026
"Summer of Love", an exhibition imparting the frolicsome fever of summertime love and play, continues at Forum Gallery through August 28th. Michael C. Thorpe (b. 1993), Rance Jones (b. 1965), and Nathaniel Aric Galka (b. 1975) are three contemporary artists included in Summer of Love whose works portray the dreaminess of mid-summer.
Michael C Thorpe's "Amongst all the complaints is a title", 2024, is an inventive quilt of stunning craftmanship and creativity. Taking as his launching pad the parody of Henri Rousseau’s famous jungle scene, "La Rêve", 1910, seen in Season 1, Episode 11, “The Crepes of Wrath” of the iconic television show, The Simpsons, Thorpe embraces the show’s irreverence with good spirited humor, remodeling its reimagination of Rousseau’s masterpiece of western art into fabric and stitches. "Amongst all the complaints is a title" playfully references art history while remaining fresh and distinctive.
Thorpe is a storyteller who uses quilting as an artistic vehicle to connect to his rich and complicated history. Quilting is a skill passed on intergenerationally by the matriarchs of the Artist's family who were part of the quilting community in New England. Thorpe’s subsequent discovery of the Gee’s Bend community of African American women quilters in Alabama offered the Artist deeper personal meaning in his chosen medium and a connection to his African American heritage.
Rance Jones' "Jade", 2020, is, on the surface, a masterful watercolor depicting a street scene observed by the Artist, but upon closer inspection, the viewer is confronted with a complex interiority. The subjects' introspection is felt palpably through her body language and intense, direct stare. The young woman at the center of the composition is seated in a simple chair by the side of the road, framed within the weathered, jade colored stone walls of a Cuban building. “Jade” may also apply to the name of the woman, while the color is often associated with notions of growth and protection.
Jones does not shy away from depicting intricate and nuanced scenes. His ongoing series of paintings about Cuban life explore themes of economic hardship and resilience of the spirit. In the new Rance Jones monograph "Watercolors of Cuba", Andrew Walker, the Executive Director of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art at the time of writing, notes, “In each watercolor, he paints not just the landscape or the architecture, but stories of the individual who inhabit those spaces. And those stories touch something familiar, universal even; they seize on the essence of a shared human experience and foster empathy through his brushstrokes…By focusing on the stories, struggles, and celebrations of the Cuban people, Rance’s art demonstrates the power of visual art to transcend geographical boundaries, connect with audiences, and evoke emotional resonance.”
Nathaniel Aric Galka thinks of his paintings as fables created to communicate moral lessons. In "You can feel happiness return..." hope and potential are represented by the thriving plants, fluttering birds, and insects that fill the frame. The fox and hare, potent symbols of the duality of nature, predator and prey, are harmonious in Galka's enchanting, imagined world.
Unlike a traditional fable, Galka invites the viewer to imagine their own narrative. The Artist employs a similar technique as early Disney animation artists, using a scrim style to create hundreds of layers to each painting. In the May/June 2024 issue of Connect Magazine, Galka explains, “How I paint is by literally adding one more ‘gel of a cartoon’ on top of the other until I have this full forest that’s invented layer by layer. And when you get down to it, I probably have anywhere between 40 and 300 layers of scrim, like you would in a cartoon.”
"Summer of Love" is on view through August 28, 2026.
To preview "Summer of Love", you are invited to visit our Online Viewing Room here: https://viewingroom.forumgallery.com/viewing-room/summer-of-love
Images:
Michael C. Thorpe, "Amongst all the complaints is a title", 2024, quilting cotton, batting, thread, crayon, 42 1/2 x 57 3/4 inches
Rance Jones, "Jade", 2020, watercolor on paper, 21 x 17 inches
Nathaniel Aric Galka, "You can feel happiness return…”, 2026, oil, gold leaf, ink and cold wax on marble plastered jute wrapped panel, 40x40 inches
Summer of Love, Forum Gallery, New York, July 6 - August 28, 2026