Complementary Visions
Ray Bub and Greg Winterhalter
EXHIBITION LOCATION: Bennington Museum, Flag Gallery
EXHIBITION DATES: September 8 - November 17, 2007
Greg Winterhalter and Ray Bub have both been making art all of their lives. They met in 1988 when Bub exhibited his artwork in the Ars Nova Gallery in North Adams, Massachusetts where Winterhalter was Gallery Curator. Winterhalter has taught Fine Arts and Humanities at Southern Vermont College in Bennington since 1980, where Bub taught Potterymaking from 1991 to 1998.
In 2001 Winterhalter started working with clay, and in 2002 he joined a series of weekly pottery classes Bub teaches in the Pownal, Vermont ceramic studio he shares with his wife and business partner Susan Nykiel.
Winterhalter has been a painter most of his life, concentrating at various times in watercolor, oils, acrylic, wax encaustic, mixed media, and handmade paper, but in the last 6 years he has also been exploring the sculptural and functional possibilities of clay. His strongest influence has been Expressionism, and among his many teachers have been several Abstract Expressionist painters. Winterhalter's artwork explores the process of his response to impressions, ideas, and the environment.
Bub has worked with raku, earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain clay since 1967, making both functional and sculptural work. Since 1994 Bub has been concentrating his creative energy on a series of unusual teapots based on the ancient upright ring vase form seen historically in many cultures around the world. He alters, cuts, and reassembles handthrown hollow clay rings into unique sculptural compositions, then adds a handle, lid finial, and spout to create his reassembled ring teapots.
Although Bub has taught Winterhalter basic clayworking techniques in the studio in the last five years, they are at heart colleagues in artwork, often carrying on extended discussions in class ranging from art historical influences to current trends, but mostly centering on how to accomplish artistic goals in their chosen media. The two artists respect and admire each other's artwork, and have wanted very much to collaborate on an exhibition where they could see their work displayed together and learn from this juxtaposition of their expressive visions. Winterhalter will show mixed-media, handmade paper, watercolor, oil, and wax encaustic paintings, as well as internally-lighted ceramic lanterns. Bub will show ceramic upright ring and reassembled ring teapots, and ceramic animal-figure surprise boxes.
The Bennington Museum has offered them a wonderful opportunity with the exhibition "Complementary Visions: Greg Winterhalter and Ray Bub," in the Flag Gallery, September 8 to November 17, 2007.