Headed to Wynwood Art night under the full moon

We headed to Wynwood last night under a full moon to see art. Jacqui Gopie has work at the UM Gallery/ Wynwood Building (2750 NW3rd Ave). It is a painterly show dealing with surface and substance. The title of the show is Naiad- a water nymph, and once standing in the gallery, it made sense with the selection of Jacqui's swimmers, and Kathleen Staples' erupting liquid abstractions. The handling of paint made it look fun and the subject matter succeeded to capture a nostalgia I have, looking back to my own childhood and also the childhood of my sons, and all the hours spent in the pool. My favorite works were the ones that were most edited and reduced to punctuations of gesture. I love how the artist doesn't have to detail everything she knows. Half the figure can be a faint outline of changing paint lines, and the next quarter is rendered in syrupy detail, and then the last quarter is a splattered surface shimmer, taking your eye to the rest of the composition. By knowing when to edit, and yet leaving traces of the thinking process for us to see, Jacqui lets us in on the mysterious journey of art making.