Sue McNally and Ted Tyler Show at Duck Creek

The Arts Center at Duck Creek opens two exhibitions this week — “Sue McNally: Mining the Middle,” an exhibition of large-scale paintings and collage studies by the Rhode Island-based artist that will be on view in the John Little Barn, and “Ted Tyler: Ceramics” featuring works by Tyler in the Little Gallery.

“Sue McNally: Mining the Middle” opens with a reception on Saturday, August 26, from 5 to 7 p.m. with an artist’s talk on Sunday, August 27, at 3 p.m. “Ted Tyler: Ceramics” opens with a reception on Saturday, August 26, from 3 to 5 p.m. Both shows run through October 8 at Duck Creek.

Sue McNally has been studying landscape for over 30 years. After decades of traveling the U.S., she has developed a personal relationship with the American landscape which has allowed her to loosen her ties to traditional practices like plein-air painting. This transition empowered her to create what would become a new approach to landscape painting, informed by the hierarchies of abstraction, and focused on the process, over depiction. This progression fell in line with the drive that propels her work.

“I challenge my physical habits, my skill and my intellectual vision,” said McNally. “I do this by continually teaching myself something new, whether it be conceptual or technical, while working through ongoing projects.”

McNally now refers to the landscape as the substructure of her abstraction, but this is not just a formal or conceptual declaration. It represents the struggle to determine which elements of the landscape get to live within the abstraction, and which aspects of abstraction better depict the vitality of the landscape. These efforts are revealed in the collage studies McNally has included in the exhibition.

“The most exciting and intellectually satisfying type of expression for me is the feeling of discovery, the feeling that I am struggling, finding my way through a problem,” says the artist. “Struggle creates my best work. When I am unsure of what I am producing, and feeling like there is no thread, no understanding, that is the most important phase of discovery.”

Ted Tyler began working in clay as a high school student in Bethesda, Maryland. He studied ceramics throughout the 1970s at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and San Francisco Art Institute. After taking a 30-year hiatus to run a successful textile business, Tyler returned to the medium in 2005, eventually building a studio and shed-sized kiln on his property in East Hampton.

The artist creates richly textured and whimsical works from wood and gas firing techniques, in combination with various ash, slip and glaze applications. Reminiscent of the works of legendary West Coast ceramicist and sculptor Peter Voulkos, Tyler’s sculptures all share a diversity of style, scale and material.

The Arts Center at Duck Creek is at 127 Squaw Road in Springs. For details, visit duckcreekarts.org.