Fred Scruton
		These photographs explore underlying interpretations of vernacular works of art and commerce, and 
		celebrate the often hand-made individual expression of anonymous designers, store owners, sign painters, 
		home owners and “outsider” artists. Seen as artifacts adrift in cultural time, our era-specific understandings 
		appear to reveal new messages in the displays themselves. The subjects then, simultaneously serve to 
		comment reflexively on our shifting perceptions.

		Starting as conventional “straight” photographs (imprint of lens on film) the original transparencies are 
		scanned and digitally re-worked by the photographer. Perhaps looking a little too “good” to be “real” in the 
		final prints, our understanding of photography’s documentary aspect is in play as well.

		Has this depiction of ‘reality’ been digitally enhanced - or have some of the rendering limitations of film 
		simply been overcome? Unable to clarify such distinctions, the viewers understanding of photographic 
		representation is metaphorically linked to the ‘work-in-progress’ nature of their cultural interpretations.

		Fred Scruton, 2003

		Daniel Chard
		Backyards have influenced my paintings for many years.  Trees, houses and shadows trigger emotions in 
		me.  As subject matter, these scenes have unique leverage, like mountain streams or distant vistas.  The 
		mix of architecture and greenery provides fodder for illusory drama, graphic structure and expressive color. 

		Based on parts of various small town environments, the new paintings present made-up spaces, using 
		fragments of real places to construct illusory volumes. During the painting process, the volumes are given 
		more weight than the content, though sense of place is maintained. The picture plane is articulated along 
		the way, creating a kind of dialectic with the angular volumes. Content is chosen for shape, pattern, value 
		and color, with particular attention to temperature in color. The image is reconfigured many times, buildings 
		redrawn, shapes and content moved about, surface patterns rearticulated. In the unconscious manipulation 
		of the variables–the play in the creative process– color is expanded and elevated in its presence, ultimately 
		present as color felt. Although various strategies are used to build the painting architecture, the character of 
		the image evolves through experimentation, in a process that continues to be more about faith than logic.

		Daniel Chard, 2003