Before the Canvas: New Exhibition Unpacks the Unseen Craft Behind Modern Fine Art Studies: From Thought to Form at the Carl Cherry Center brings together 12 painters and sculptors to reveal how raw concepts harden into masterpiece status.
In a culture accustomed to polished final products, the messier, more vital work of artistic invention often gets left on the studio floor. Beginning November 13th, the Carl Cherry Center for the Arts confronts that gap with Studies: From Thought to Form, a major group exhibition running through December 5th. An artist’s reception will be held Friday, November 13th, from 5-7pm. The event is free and open to the public.
The exhibition brings together a formidable roster of twelve regional and international artists—spanning classical draftsmanship, modernist abstraction, satire, and figurative bronze—the show places preliminary sketches, compositional drafts, and technical maquettes alongside completed works to chart the path from initial spark to finished object. Studies operates as a kind of visual exercise, laying bare the false starts, structural anxieties, and sudden breakthroughs that guide an artist’s hands before a work ever meets a gallery wall.
“We so often see art only when it’s finished and immaculate,” says curator and sculptor Kris Swanson. “Studies: From Thought to Form lets viewers see the messier, often chaotic beginnings. That first work in clay, for instance, depends on every difficult, messy step before it becomes the polished bronze in the gallery. I hope viewers come away with appreciation for the process of every talented maker here.”
A Roster Guided by Process and Technique
The exhibition is a study in contrasts, showing how very different traditions approach the discipline of preparation:
Will Bullas is a Vietnam veteran and Brooks Institute alumnus who studied under Ray Strong. He pairs technical skill with sharp-witted humor, and his meticulous drafts lay the groundwork for narrative satire.
Richard Greathouse is an American painter who has exhibited with the Florence Academy of Art and Haynes Galleries. His preparatory studies record an intense, direct encounter with the natural world.
Sarah Healey was raised on Big Sur’s Partington Ridge and educated at London’s Sir John Cass Institute. Her mixed-media studies map the unseen forces of her native terrain: fence lines, animal paths, air, and temperature.
Chris Leib trained at UC Berkeley and the Academy of Art. He builds detailed classical studies into surreal, darkly humorous compositions featuring astronauts and bonobos.
Claire Livingston is a Los Angeles oil painter who draws on her imagination to tell visual stories. Her studies trace the move from observing live models and landscape to dreamlike final compositions.
Susan Manchester is a draftswoman and printmaker who studied under Giorgio Morandi in Florence and Gordon Cook at SFAI. Her observational drawings of feathers and flora are held in collections including the Smithsonian.
Alicia Ponzio is a Florence Academy of Art graduate and former instructor. She presents preliminary plasters and bronzes that capture the delicate mechanics of human emotion and fluid form.
Katrina Pura is a landscape and portrait painter based in southern Monterey County who graduated from the Florence Academy of Art in 2018. She works primarily in oil, drawing on the rural scenes of her home in the Gabilan Mountains, and is an artist member of the Carmel Art Association and the California Art Club.
Kirstine Reiner Hansen is a Danish painter who merges Old Master rigor with abstract disruption. She builds her figures from preparatory layers inspired by vintage cinema and fashion portraiture.
Kris Swanson is a California artist and sculptor best known for the California Grizzlies at Colton Hall and the 10-foot cowboy at the Salinas Rodeo grounds.
Joaquin Turner is an award-winning oil painter, art historian, and gallery owner who works in the tradition of the Old Masters. His light-focused tonalist studies capture the fleeting atmospheric shifts of the local landscape.
Per Elof Nilsson Ricklund is a third-generation Sámi artist from the region spanning northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia. He brings classical European technique and rigorous observation to studies of the human figure and surrounding terrain, often depicting traditional Sámi stories.
Pictured: “The Crossing” – Per Elof Nilsson Ricklund
