Are We There Yet?

Archway Gallery presents Are We There Yet? featuring new paintings by Cookie Wells and wood furniture by Tom Wells, on view August 5 – 31, 2023. The artists will be available to visit with guests during the opening reception on Saturday, August 5, 2023, from 5 – 8 p.m., with an Artist Talk at 6 30 p.m.
This show profiles a journey of renewal of creativity, as well as the reinvention and metamorphosis of an artist.  Through this series of paintings, Cookie Wells reveals her journey on paper. Wells has focused on figures for most of her artistic career. Seeking change, she began painting non-objective abstracts, which strip away the details of familiar subject matter and challenge the artist to represent the emotion and essence of the experience. The resulting artwork must convey harmony, discord, pain, joy, love, tension, or anxiety. “Just when you think you’ve exhausted your painting ideas, abstract art stimulates new ideas and opens your mind to everything you feel you must express,” says Wells.

While color has always been central to her work, Wells began her change with the difficult but necessary task of eliminating color and painting solely in black and white. She then began including subtle but expressive color to add depth to her pieces. Wells attributes her choice of the abstract representation of trees in this exhibition to her previous Earth Day series, “Save the Rainforest,” and to the natural beauty of the wood her husband, Tom, uses in furniture making. In these new organic paintings, she explores trees as if they were figures. In some works the trees are transformed into figurative pieces with a much different look from her previous figure paintings. This was one of the surprises along the way. Cookie Wells believes in following your heart and soul on the path of your creative journey. “Although some say that it’s the journey itself that’s inspiring,” she notes, “in all honesty, I’m moved by the destination.”

In conjunction with this exhibition of paintings, you will find finely crafted wood furniture created by Thomas Wells. Some of these pieces continue the theme of integrating dark and light, linear and whimsy, form and function. While two-dimensional art is a medium for messaging, creatively artistic furniture is more suited to framing a mood while fulfilling a specific purpose. Integrating the beauty of natural wood into our lives reminds us of our direct links with nature, and that these links are so often overlooked in our urban environment.