New York, NY – From January 27 to March 12, 2022, Forum Gallery presents the  exhibition, Stillness of Life, comprising of recent works by four artists whose disparate  subjects and media contrast with their related devotion to probing contemplation of all they  examine. Celebrated for their meticulous execution, each artist on view evokes the infinite complexity of his subject in that space of observation and memory where time stands still. 

Robert Bauer (b. 1942) creates sensitive and introspective portraits of relatives and close  friends. The intimate paintings on panel and paper, whose detail and scale belie their  commanding presence, are completely compelling albeit never confrontational. The subjects  look away as we look at them and similarly, Bauer’s landscapes drift off the edges of the  frame, evoking memories and infiltrating our thoughts without resolution. Robert Bauer lives  and works in Thomaston, Maine; five recent portraits and four landscape paintings on paper  are exhibited for the first time together in this exhibition.

Montreal artist Paul Fenniak (b. 1965) creates complex narrative oil paintings, that result  from autobiography, dreams, historical references and implications for contemporary life. Of  Paul Fenniak’s paintings, Donald Kuspit writes, “The best realism is not just about careful  observation and descriptive nuance – in which Fenniak excels – but about discovery and  insight. The best realism is not simply descriptive however meticulous the description, but  reflective – reflective on reality – and Fenniak’s works are profoundly reflective.” Paul  Fenniak’s paintings are like views of dreams where improbable actions are frozen in space for  endless examination. Four recent paintings are seen in the exhibition.  

G. Daniel Massad (b. 1946), working in rural Pennsylvania and only in pastel on paper,  creates still lifes of objects of personal and historic significance, immobilized by light against  dark background. His imagination, which he calls “slow pace”, works its way into our  thoughts through Massad’s reverent portrayals. Viewing the works is akin to archeological  discovery, like the resurrection of the Roman Forum from the dirt beneath unsuspecting feet.  Time stops as stories old and new are told through the choice of object and the encrypted  messages from the Artist.  

Cleveland-based Anthony Mitri (b. 1951) recalls a quote from Wordsworth, “poetry is  emotion recollected in tranquility.” Mitri, working in tonally rich charcoal in grisaille, notes  that the weeks and months it takes him to complete a single composition becomes an  “extended moment of memory […] that seeks to communicate an emotion once felt, as so  recollected in tranquility.” Mitri seeks to create “an atmosphere of contemplative quiet, of  stillness via settings where the viewer may experience, in a personal way, a quiet moment to  reflect on life.” The five drawing in the exhibition are urban or rural places where the Artist  has focused his attention, and ours, on the silence and stillness of place and time each  location represents for him. 

To see the works in the exhibition and learn more about the artists, you are invited to enter  the Stillness of Life Online Viewing Room here: https://viewingroom.forumgallery.com/viewing-room/stillness-of-life-bauer-fenniak-massad-mitri

Forum Gallery is located at 475 Park Avenue at 57th Street, New York, NY 10022. Forum  Gallery is open to the public from Monday through Saturday, from 10am to 5:30pm. Please  visit https://www.forumgallery.com/exhibitions/stillness-of-life-bauer-fenniak-massad-mitri to  view the entire exhibition online. The exhibition begins on January 27, 2022 and will be on  view through March 12, 2022. 

 Forum Gallery is pleased to greet all vaccinated visitors during our public hours, and  provides hand sanitizer and face coverings, on request. We comply with New York laws and  the protocols recommended by the US CDC.  

For press inquiries, please contact Ilana Jade Roth, 212-355-4545; [email protected]. 

For sales inquiries, please contact Nicola Lorenz, Executive Director or Marjorie Van Cura, Associate  Director, 212-355-4545; [email protected]