Opening Reception: Friday, May 24, 2013 from 5:00 - 9:00 pm
Gallery Talk: Saturday, May 25, 2013 from 2:00 - 3:30pm

American artists have had a long history of creative works on paper, including watercolorists, printmakers, collagists, bookmakers, etc. During the last 50 years especially there has been a strong revival of interest in the woodcut. Among the very best practitioners of the color woodcut and surely the most consistent as well as persistent of all is Carol Summers. Deeply involved in his preferred medium, he has brought to it a passion and artistry of a very high order.

A love of color, often high-keyed and richly saturated, its expressiveness and above all its power to evoke rather than depict or narrate something literal or specific. The color he chooses, like the man himself, is direct, forthright, and clear. While his works are joyous and generally life-affirming, color chords at times may be strident and off-putting or uncanny, at time mysterious. His deep blues can convey a gravity of emotion as for example in Sunset after Storm 1988 or Night 1996. Summers uses color daringly and, like Pail Klee whom he admires, he is a modern fabulist of the imagination.

Summers' prints are frequently large - very large as woodcuts go. He obviously is not afraid of hard work, doing the cutting, coloring and printing himself. His prints resemble the stuff of dreams, but the man himself is fully alert. He is technically expert and has developed a personal way of coloring and printing. Well traveled, well read, cultivated and witty, he creates works that spring forth from specific places or historical events, utterly transformed. His love of non-western art shines through.

There will be much to see in this exhibition and much to discover - like a book of marvels.

-Matt Phillips, from Carol Summers Woodcuts