THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 28, 1996 TAG: 9604260056
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
NANCY MOORE Fine Art, a commercial gallery in Manhattan, is fast becoming the hot venue for Hampton Roads artists.
Since it opened in February, Moore's gallery has featured several artists who live in Hampton Roads or have exhibited here.
Yet the owner stresses this point adamantly: Moore Fine Art is NOT a Virginia artists' gallery.
``I'm featuring people who I've worked with in the past. I'm working with these people because I have a history with them, and I believe in their work,'' said Moore, who ran Stanley Gallery on 21st Street in Norfolk from 1984 to 1991. In those days, she went by her former married name, Nancy Stanley.
``I'm featuring emerging artists from New York City and other areas as well,'' she said.
The common thread among her artists is that ``the work has a strong emotional and intellectual resonance. There's content to it. Most of my artists are mid-career. Many of them are academics. And they all really have a strong exhibition history.''
In March, Maine painter Anderson Giles - who continues to return to his hometown for the Virginia Beach Boardwalk Art Show - had a solo show. This month, Norfolk photographer John Wadsworth was featured with his ``Through a Veil, Darkly'' series recently shown at the Virginia Beach Center for the Arts.
Friday, an opening reception is scheduled for a one-person show featuring Matthew D. Fine. The Norfolk sculptor will also give a gallery talk.
For some odd reason, gallery talks have struck New Yorkers as a wild idea. ``No one gives gallery talks in New York,'' Moore said.
Fine will show 12 to 14 marble and mixed media sculptures, a mixture of both small and large pieces.
What does Moore like about his work? ``His technique of juxtaposing the highly polished surfaces with rough, jagged surfaces,'' she began. ``It creates a really, really strong aesthetic tension in the work. He's developed and advanced it quite a bit since we did a show together back in Norfolk.''
His blending of rough and polished areas ``reflects his interest in the dichotomy between the natural world and man's imposition of his will upon the natural world, which I also feel is important and interesting,'' she said.
Fine's show continues through June 1. Then, in June, Moore will feature Norfolk painter Steven Wolf, featured earlier this spring in a show at the d'Art Center in downtown Norfolk.
Moore Fine Art is at 549 Broadway, Suite 409, in the Soho neighborhood in downtown Manhattan. The gallery is across the street from the downtown branch of the Guggenheim Museum, and next door to The Alternative Museum. Hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Free admission. Call (212) 343-7016. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
``Saddle River'' by Matthew D. Fine is on view at Nancy Moore Fine
Art in Manhattan.
by CNB