Exhibitions

Gallery One is pleased to announce the April show, “Three’s a Crowd,” open to the public March 27 through April 30, 2024.

 It’s not a welcoming greeting when we say, “two’s company, three’s a crowd,” but at Gallery One this month good things can also come in threes.

The old saying (dating back to the 1600s), is typically used in circumstances where a third person is not welcome when two people want to be alone with each other. We see this in artist, Cindy Beyer’s acrylic, “Seats Taken”. Cindy describes the scene this way: “Marco Island is the perfect spot for Pelican watching.  It took me some time to get close to these big birds on the rocks.  I had a brief moment to shoot them before they flew off.  For our theme, “three’s a crowd,” I thought it would be fun to paint one flying away after being pushed off the rock as if the other two said, “Beat it Bubby, this seat’s taken.”

In Joyce Condry’s acrylic painting, “No Vacancy,” we have a triad of pelicans evicting an interloper, “I’m sorry but we are fully booked.  You might try the pier next door.”

But the saying also conjures up, “The Rule of Threes,” for artists. And our artists illustrate this month show how good three can be. Things arranged in odd numbers are more appealing, memorable, and effective than even numbered groupings. Three seems to be the magic number. The principle holds weight not just in painting, but also in interior design and photography.

The answer lies in the way our brains work. Three is the smallest number that can be used to form a distinguishable pattern in our heads. Also, when you see an odd number of things, your eye is forced to move around more, which makes for a more interesting visual experience.

This is illustrated beautifully in artist Lesley McCaskill’s acrylic, “A Gaggle of Geese,” awash in a striking palette of blues and greens, Cheryl Wisbrock’s, “Three Kayakers,” in watercolor, in which the strong shadows and relatively dark palette serve to emphasize the bright sunlit area these kayaks are headed into, artist Dale Sheldon’s, “Three White Pelicans,” in acrylic, Michelle Marshall’s graphic acrylic, “Guardians of the Beach” and W. Scott Broadfoot’s “Three Peaches.”

In “Garden in Ravello,” a pastel by artist Laura Hickman” we are treated to some storytelling, “At the glorious Rose Terrace in Ravello’s Villa Cimbrone, three dogs greeted me, but only two of my four-legged friends led me on the grand tour, obviously sometimes three is a crowd.”