In The Galleries: Finding Beauty Inside And Outside The Garden Walls

The nature-themed artworks exhibited in local galleries in recent years often depict a planet under siege: blown up, overheated and simply destroyed. However, some artists still notice unexplored natural beauty, whether viewing it up close or up close. Larian Signori's "Poetry of the Place" features misty landscapes ablaze with heavenly light; A Few Thoughts on Trees by Patricia Williams stylizes trunks, branches and leaves; and "The Botanical Gourmet" focuses narrowly and precisely on several, if not fewer, edible plants.

Signora's oil paintings and pastel drawings are regularly exhibited near her home in suburban Maryland, but her exhibition at Gallery B highlights special concerns and techniques. Compositionally, the liveliest of these images are cut by bodies of water, like a canal flowing through the golden space of Conversaciones con Silencio. Sunlight plays with these gaps in the fields and forests, making the creek running through Afternoon is a Piece of Heaven look like a fracture of liquid gold.

Some colors and pastels have a thick texture, albeit in different ways. The moon is low in the red sky of the Twinkle Border of the Horizon, whose painterly gestures are enhanced by the exquisite weave of Irish linen. Marble dust mixed with plaster results in pastels like Flamenco Dancer, which features a single red flower with a weathered appearance. The subject is simple, but its impressionistic background is as complex and vivid as one of Signora's epic vistas.

"The Whole is Greater than the Sum of Its Parts" by Patricia Williams as part of her program "A Few Thoughts on Trees".

The dominant color in Williams' tree exhibition at Touchstone Gallery is not green but a rich, soft blue. It frames the silhouettes of branches and other details in many of the artist's drawings from rural Virginia, most of which are done with watercolor on clay and sealed with varnish. The tree shapes are generally lighter than their sky backgrounds, but have loose patterns with spots and lines in striking shades of green, orange, and red. The partially abstract scenes sometimes house animals, including a robin, which is the most striking feature of Williams Woods.

Everything is organic, but sometimes subject to rigid geometry. Some compositions are arranged in multiple squares arranged in a tight, regular grid. This approach can mimic the view out of windows or simply demonstrate the artist's ability to organize what they see. Williams pairs each image with a quote about trees from many sources, but the focus of the show is clearly his.

The members of The Botanical Gourmet, the Athenaeum's showcase for members of the National Capital Region Botanical Art Society, depict their subjects with precise and meticulous realism were not alive or playful. Ann Clippinger's Garlic Scapes is sharp for vibrant effect, Pamela Mason's Briar Beach stands out sharply against the black paper, and Joan Mapp Ducor's The Balanced Diet packs plenty of greens into an impressive stack.

While Ducor's photography and Mary Elcano's "Waldorf Salad" group fruits, nuts and vegetables that can be eaten together, other collaborators find pictorial contrasts in the plants' natural surroundings. Elena Maza-Borland depicts the rough rind of an ancient French pumpkin, while CB Exley juxtaposes the subtle gradients of two dangling persimmons, their skin bathed in light and their leaves green but edged with brown. Maturity and lightness give deep nuances.

Loriann Signori: The Poetry of Place through January 15 at Gallery B , 7700 Wisconsin Ave., #E, Bethesda.

Patricia Williams: Some Thoughts on Trees through January 8 at Touchstone Gallery , 901 New York Ave. NW

Botanicals at the Athenaeum , 201 Prince St, Alexandria until January 8 .

Benjamin Bertocci

"The Promise," the title of Benjamin Bertocci's Von Ammon Co. show, refers to a theoretical method of decomposing corpses through freeze-drying. All of the images are titled "Promise" plus one or more Roman numerals, but few depict human bodies, decaying or simply deformed. It is not the subject that connects the images, but the technology.

The New York-based artist often paints on what he calls a "plastic canvas," fragmenting the subject into large, computer-like pixels. The effect is to distort the image, although some of the simpler ones - like the skull, of course - are easily distinguishable from afar. Less decipherable are Julie Andrews' pastel colors and Jan Bruegel the Elder's version of The Temptation of Saint Anthony, which is even darker than the original.

One of the artist's concerns is technology, and the partially taped image consists of broken pieces of circuit board. But perhaps Bertocci only sees a way of breaking down and reducing in digital representation. The artist follows a process that, as promised, reduces complex creatures to their simplest parts.

Benjamin Bertocci: fiance until January 8 at Von Ammon Co. , 3330 Cady's Alley NW.

Liz Tran

Some of the paintings in the current Liz Tran exhibition are from mid-2021 but have a new location and center. Although both exhibitions are curated by Morton Fine Art, Matriarchs and Daughters Dream Oceans of Braille is installed at Homme, where abstract imagery frames a 16-foot vertical banner spanning a wall and in-ground pools. The piece, created in collaboration with Trans Mutter and featuring part of her grandmother's tablecloth, inspired the exhibition's title, which references cross-generational connections and the tactile nature of working with fabrics.

Of the remaining pieces, only three are circular, but all have abundant spheres, points, and rounded tips. Tran uses warm-toned forms in a variety of media, often densely layered on an off-white background. Droppers are permitted, even encouraged, and painted dot rings often follow the outlines of large spheres.

While the Seattle-based artist's color schemes are floral in nature, the profusion of flickering markers is reminiscent of star charts. This similarity is recognized here in the series title The Cosmic Circle, but the original inspiration for Trans' compositional method is the Rorschach inkblot. The vast, rich spaces of these paintings represent both a psychological and an interstellar nature.

Liz Tran: Matriarchs and Daughters dream Oceans of Braille at Morton Fine Art by Homme , 2000 L St NW through January 6th Open by appointment.