July 5 – July 30, 2025

WATER AND SKY

Jessica Lee Ives & Katherine Wilkes

Artist Reception: Wednesday, July 9, 5–7pm

Jessica Lee Ives joins Katherine Wilkes in WATER & SKY, a two-person show about the relationship between two powerful elements essential to life and one’s emotional well-being. For Ives, the point of entry revolves around the water’s surface—above, horizontal, or below. For Wilkes, the place where sky meets water conveys a fundamental sense of existing from the very beginning. Between these two painters, the room literally vibrates with energy and bright color.

Sunlight shining down on people immersed in water is a way for Ives to invite viewers to reimagine the experience of being in the natural world. “Kinesthetic intelligence and imagination are very important to me; so is the sensation of wonder.”In Light Shapes Life and Water Impression, the perspectives above and below the water’s surface are from the same location at Craig Pond in Orland, one of the artist’s favorite swimming holes. Other Craig Pond paintings include Up and Around, and Magnify and Swimming Ahead.

Wilkes is awed by her sister’s nature photography of the northern lights over Scotland and the Lofoten Islands in Norway. The vast expanses of aurora skies in her paintings Supernatural and Otherworldly evoke feelings of freedom, escape, awe, and the boundless possibilities of the human spirit. Dragon’s Eye depicts a prehistoric rock formation at Uttakleiv Beach. The large bolder of metamorphic rock resembles a reptilian eye and changes appearance with the tide and lighting conditions. In Illuminating the Stones iridescent colors radiate over the 5,000 year old stone circle, Ring of Brodgar in Orkney. Here, the auroras are known as “Merry Dancers” for their shimmering movements.