Rites of Passage: Cheryl Molnar and Christian Vincent

About

We are proud to announce Rites of Passage, featuring work by C24 Gallery artists, Cheryl Molnar and Christian Vincent. The opening reception will be on Thursday, May 18th from 6-8:00PM, and will be on view through July 14th, 2023. 

Cheryl Molnar and Christian Vincent, while working with different methods and mediums, each blend representational imagery in unusual ways to create surreal, layered compositions. Their immersive paintings and collages embody complex narratives about family, coming of age and other personal milestones, spanning parallel histories that encompass both the east and west coasts of the United States.

Cheryl Molnar’s collage paintings combine photographic and digitally rendered images with painted elements to illustrate memory-driven, unlikely landscapes. Her depictions incorporate elements of eastern Long Island topography, combined with recognizable features of the mountains and deserts of southern California, hearkening back to her time spent growing up on both coasts. Some of her most recent works feature leaves and branches that expand past the boundary of the canvas, inviting viewers to completely lose themselves in the layered horizons that stretch far into the distance.

Christian Vincent is known for his large-scale oil paintings—haunting, enigmatic scenarios inspired by melancholy, nostalgic imaginings. This new body of work is a collection of surprising iterations of familiar Vincent tropes - patterned backgrounds juxtaposed with patterned foregrounds, lone figures gazing at the moon or illuminated by the sun, merging with elements of nature and animals. His boldly colored, immersive canvases operate at multiple levels, pulsing with the subtlety of life’s passages as they invite viewers to step inside and build their own stories.