OPENING RECEPTION: 1st THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6 | FROM 5-8pm
HOMESTEAD marks the fifth solo exhibition for MEREDITH BROOKS ABBOTT at Sullivan Goss - representing now a decade of solo shows with the artist.
The Brooks and Abbott families have been farming and ranching in Santa Barbara county for over one hundred years. Farming life is marked by the cycle of seasons and Meredith’s plein air painting practice keeps her attuned to these same natural rhythms. In the spring, she paints the matilija poppies that bloom – both alongside her house and out in the world – as well as the artichokes. The fruits, vegetables, and flowers that dazzle at the local farmer’s market in the summer months then show up in Meredith’s summer canvases. The fall brings warm golden hour landscapes and sunflower arrangements that are elegant without being fussy. In winter, she reminds us to appreciate the Chanterelle mushrooms and cloudscapes laden with rain.
Decades of immersion have given the painting of these sites and crops the feeling of ritual. She has watched the local landscape mature and develop. As a founding member of the Oak Group, she has worked to help preserve local landscapes like the Carpinteria Bluffs. Her family homestead has become a great source for her art, the means of her livelihood, and, in turn, a great part of the meaning of her life.
And so the cycle continues. Her children, Whitney and Robert, are both farmers and painters, too, and some of her grandchildren seem poised to continue the tradition of farm to canvas life.
Meredith Brooks Abbott studied under noted local artists Douglass Parshall, NA, Richard Meryman, and Clarence Hinkle before going on to study at Art Center in Los Angeles. She then moved to New York City where she worked as an illustrator and took night classes at the Arts Students League. For over four decades, she has lived, worked, and exhibited in Santa Barbara – exhibiting at many of the area’s most successful galleries, including Ellen Easton Gallery, Maureen Murphy Fine Arts, and Gallery de Silva. She has been represented at Sullivan Goss since 2009.
THE DEEP TRADITION OF CREATION IN RESPONSE TO A SOUL TIE WITH THE LAND will envelop Sullivan Goss on 1st Thursday, February 6th when they open Homestead, their fifth solo exhibition of Meredith Brooks Abbott's work.
