Peter Harrington’s paintings of symmetric conflations of pagodas and other Buddhist temples and iconography with cacti, vintage cars, cross sections of trees, jet planes, and flowers have a quirky edge but also suggest the transparency of the physical realm of existence, open to the transcendent realm of the spirit. “Years spent living in Zen monastic communities and solitary retreats in the wilderness have also lent a certain feeling of relatedness to the natural world, and my paintings have been marked by these experiences,” he states. Harrington joins ceramist Gena Fowler for Up in My Grill: Explorations in Sublime Irreverence, a two-person show that opens Friday, Oct. 5. Fowler invests her sculptures, modeled on commonly available products, with a biting commentary on consumerism in the era of self-care. “Each product has been inspired by a need for something that does not exist in the real world, ”she states. The reception for Up in My Grill is at 5 p.m
Peter Harrington, New World Dandelion, 2017, oil on canvas, 30 x 47.5 in.