April 17th - May 15th, 2009

Cross MacKenzie Gallery is pleased to present two shows this month; 

“Huts” architectural photographs by Prakash Patel and a “Cup Invitational”.

Prakash Patel’s “Huts” celebrate the whimsical small shelters designed by Miami’s hottest architects to house the beaches’ most central and honored members, the lifeguards.   These shelters provide a serious service to the lifeguards by protecting them from the sun, providing a place for their equipment and elevating their view of the ocean.  Patel’s photographs recognize the buildings for their contribution to the visual identity of the Deco beach community with their often zany designs, keeping the spirit of fun alive with their mango and avocado palettes and surfboard shaped roofs.  

Patel’s artful photographs of these charming buildings are more like portraits than landscape photographs.  The individual character of each building is brought out with the photographer’s careful isolation of his subject as if he has brought them into his studio for a sitting.  The stilts even start to look like crossed legs that may soon stroll down the sandy beach.  The building’s relationship is with the sea and sky only.  For his backdrops, Patel captures the dramatic sunsets we crave at the beach and creates a rich canvas of color with the painted “huts” in the foreground.  The roiling storm clouds looming in some of those skies carry an ominous message of the unpredictable aspect of nature, the very thing the lifeguards look to protect against from their cozy perches.  This collection of seven photographs is a testament to photographer Prakash Patel’s sensitive eye for the quality of light and for the power of even the most modest architecture to define our environment.

Cross MacKenzie Ceramic Arts presents “A Cup Invitational” an exhibition of dozens of local and national ceramic artist’s smallest works of functional art.  Some of the artists represented are familiar names in the local pottery world such as Elizabeth Kendall, Hunt Prothro and Willie Singleton.  Other ceramic artists included in the show, like Chris Gustin and James Lawton have works in major museum collections around the country.  We are pleased to feature this wide ranging group of clay objects for those who appreciate the aesthetic pleasure of drinking coffee or tea from a one of a kind vessel lovingly crafted by the hands of an artist.

The list of artists:

Chris Gustin, James Lawton, Rae Dunn, Francine Ozereko, Kate Hardy, Elizabeth Kendall, Joe Hicks, Lynne Chytillo, Sally Jaffee, Les Lawrence, Patrick Coughlin, Frank Ozereko,  Angel Schwab, Martina Lantin, Lars Westby, Soveig Cox, Hunt Prothro, Paula Winokur, Jane Spaulding, Valerie Zimany, Zach Duncan Tessmer, Chuck Aylet, Sam Harvey, Liz Quackenbush, Erik Wilhelmsen, John Jessiman, Xiaosheng Bi, Larry Bush, Ryan Lee Hereth, Sharon Murray, Lindenfeld, Yeonhee Ji