“I chose the title Letters From the Afternoon for this exhibition because I mainly paint only in the afternoon while my three year old naps. During this magical time, I can check in with myself and look inward to take stock of what demands attention. When I paint, I feel like I’m writing a letter to someone but also depicting my heart or mind as plain as day, sending out homing signals for those who understand to also feel that echo and send the ping back. Art, in its various forms, provides that beautiful function for me- it serves as a beacon and a message, which communicates how connected we are in this human experience; that we are not alone in marveling at the same things, like golden hour light, clouds, music, the touch of someone, the loss of a loved one, the way they revisit us in other forms, the certainty and the mystery.

- Mary Shah

No doubt that in the coming year or two, artists will be completing bodies of work in every conceivable medium that will be dedicated to, inspired by or in reaction to this defining moment of the global pandemic. Some have found it difficult to move forward creating, while others have found respite in the act of creating. For Mary Shah, a painter living in Brooklyn, this has been a time of conflict, concern and creativity as she continued a series of paintings in both oil and watercolor, working towards a physical exhibition that had to be postponed due to the outbreak. RWFA is very pleased to present Letters from the Afternoon as a virtual alternative, available to be viewed as an exhibition on our website, as an OVR (Online Viewing Room), on Artsy and on social media.

Letters continues Ms. Shah’s use of painting as a medium of inner expression and spiritual enlightenment; a means for seeking solace when life in a world rocked by unfathomable loss demands it. This, her third exhibition with the gallery, expands upon the base developed in her previous show, Becoming More Like Air. The works in that show were the result of finding pleasure inherent in painting places she found through spiritual explorations, by considering the major events of her life, in particular the recent birth of her son. In the current exhibition, form takes on a decidedly broader ecology of expression, enhancing her relationship to both the natural world and her inner life. Utilizing the perspective of a God’s eye view, these works appear painted from Heaven, looking down on an Earth of immense beauty and constant motion. Aviary forms blend and become the clouds the birds themselves fly among, as in the watercolor Around My Ankles or the oil on panel diptych, What Time Cannot Dissolve. Sunlight reflects off wings and illuminates the mountains below as in Only Forward or I Wish I Knew. With a muted palette of pale greens, yellows and ochre for backgrounds, the scenes are augmented by swirls of crimsons and purples, deep blues and rich greys and earth tones, creating a dynamic emotional range of color that seems to define the essence of soaring flight. Her use of multiple focal points further enhances the movement evident in the compositions: cinematic and musical orchestrations bending and melding various perspectives. Entering her paintings is like walking in the chimera of a dream, weightlessness overrules gravity and solid ground.