“Overpass and Intersection” by Lauren Scavo-Fulk, charcoal on paper, 18 x 18 inches

The Crary Art Gallery will open two new solo exhibitions Saturday featuring the contrast of vividly colored pop art nature works and emotionally expressive black and white landscapes.

Showing in the Main and North Galleries, “True Pop Nature” is a collection of small to medium-size pop paintings of nature subjects by David Palmer of Los Angeles, Calif.

The South Galleries will feature “Terrain”, a series of small-scale monochromatic landscape drawings by Lauren Scavo-Fulk of Pittsburgh.

Palmer, a native of Syracuse, holds an MFA from the University of Massachusetts and a BA from the University of Florida. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the U.S., and appears in numerous public and private collections. He is the recipient of a MacDowell Colony Fellowship, an Artist’s Grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, and a residency at 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica. He has also created digital effects for over a dozen feature films, including The Polar Express, Spider-Man 3, and the first Harry Potter movie.

“My paintings combine the vocabulary of Pop Art with an Italian Renaissance sensibility,” Palmer said in an artist’s statement. “They are inspired by dreams, childhood memories, nature and contemporary culture. Their surfaces are distressed, revealing patches of underlying color, reminiscent of aging frescoes and peeling billboards. This exhibition is focused on my nature-themed work. “When I start a painting, I don’t know what it’s going to look like when it’s finished. I like to discover the image as I work on it. I start with an idea, but at some point, the painting takes on a life of its own, and it leads me to a place I couldn’t have predicted. It’s like having a conversation or taking a walk in a new neighborhood.”

“People Like Cows #11” by David Palmer, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 30 inches

For more information, visit davidpalmerstudio.com.

Scavo-Fulk is a Pittsburgh-based artist whose small-scale drawings focus on the relationship between human consciousness and the external environment. She earned her MFA from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2019. Her work has recently been exhibited at Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio; Buckham Gallery in Flint, Mich.; Hoyt Center for the Arts in New Castle, Pa.; Hopkins Center for the Arts in Hopkins, Minn.; the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg, Pa.; Artlink in Fort Wayne, Ind.; ArtSpace Gallery in Richmond, Va.; Dacia Gallery in New York City and the Sweetwater Center for the Arts in Sewickley, Pa.

“My work is an examination of the strong connection that exists between human consciousness and its surrounding environment, specifically the way in which our sensory experience of a place influences our subjective interpretation of it,” she said in a statement. “I present the viewer with scenes of heightened atmosphere that are indicative of a sense of reflection and quiet attention to the elements of the world that are both physical and nonphysical, as the external world reflects the internal life of the viewer. I am drawn to landscapes because they are both universal and personal; they are intertwined in both individual lives and collective histories, and are historically and culturally relevant in the art community and in the larger world. Though they are constantly changing, they are ever-present.”

Describing the viewer experience, she says, “My mark-making is expressive; however, since my finished pieces are so small in scale, the expressiveness of these marks cannot be seen unless the pieces are viewed from a close distance. Thus, I am seeking to depict the contrast between the objective depiction of nature and the subjective human element that is always present in our interpretation of our surroundings.”

For more in formation, visit laurenscavo.com.

Both exhibitions will run through Dec. 19. An open house will be held from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday. The opening day activities include Tabouli Middle Eastern food truck on site and an opportunity to meet artist Scavo-Fulk.

Exhibition hours, after the opening, are Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 6 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. Admission is free. More information on this and upcoming exhibitions can be found at craryartgallery.com.