Tripoli Gallery’s Thanksgiving Collective

Tripoli Gallery’s 16th Annual Thanksgiving Collective opens Saturday, November 28, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Titled “Are We There Yet?” it includes 12 artists: Sabra Moon Elliot, Rhys Gaetano, Judith Hudson, Bryan Hunt, Yung Jake, Liz Markus, Bella McGoldrick, Laith McGregor, Angelbert Metoyer, Miles Partington, Lauren West and Lucy Winton. The show runs through January 28, 2021.

“Are We There Yet?” is a question all children ask, and yet know the answer as soon as they ask it. The question itself reveals how individuals frequently exist in the limbo between the present and the future they imagine will unfold. However, the question of whether any of us are “there” or not is only answered by living in the current moment, as we take ownership of the journey to getting there.

In this year’s Thanksgiving Collective, Tripoli Gallery observes the creative and adventurous minds of artists who inspire individual journeys through their work. Beginning in the immediate moment in which they find themselves, these artists build the worlds they desire to live in or recreate the pasts left behind in the active effort to move ahead.

While artists have various sources of inspiration in the contemporary world, those sources are often the changing everyday environment, as well as the enduring natural world. Looking to nature for guidance, a painting by Laith McGregor titled “Alone Time: depicts a lush terrain of greens and blues upon which a map of outlines form a landscape. Steam from a cup and kettle travels up from the bottom of the painting to the shape of a man leaning on a mountain below sky, trees, and clouds. Appearing as a woodsman from another time, the man gazes into the distance from his vantage point on the mountain, a picture of reflective solitude.

A common thread through the works in this exhibition is found in the instinctive reactions of these artists to the uncertainty of our times. Seeking moments of relaxation and refuge from the noise of the outside world, paintings by Bella McGoldrick illustrate her friends and daily surroundings. In contrast to these everyday peaceful scenes is the fantasy and comedy within Lauren West’s painting “Horned Section,” a surreal composition of horned characters and animals in a frenzy. A googly-eyed unicorn, narwhal, and red-horned creature surround the figure of a woman within a cave-like environment. Obscuring the woman from view is a white dove captured in the moment of flight across her face, a symbol of peace within the commotion of the painting’s invented world.

Tripoli Gallery is at 26 Ardsley Road in Wainscott. For more details, visit tripoligallery.com or call 631-377-3715.