GAVLAK Palm Beach is excited to announce the group exhibition, Tupelo Honey, curated by Eloise Janssen and Bethani Wells. The exhibition explores southern summer as it ebbs and flows from day to night. The front gallery explores the dreamy feeling of summer days, while the back gallery space is a rumination on dark coastal nights. The exhibition presents works by artists Lindsay Adams, Jose Alvarez (D.O.P.A.), Andrew Brischler, Deborah Brown, Taina Cruz, Marc Dennis, Judith Eisler, Braxton Garneau, Manuela Gonzalez, Taha Heydari, Nir Hod, Nancy Lorenz, Maynard Monrow, Anthony Sonnenberg, Awilda Sterling, Alexis Teplin, Betty Tompkins, T.J. Wilcox, and Rob Wynne. Tupelo Honey will be on view from June 16 - October 5, 2023. The opening reception will occur on Friday, June 16, from 5 – 7 pm.  

Summer seemingly never ends in South Florida. Seasoned locals can feel the slow shift into summer marked by longer, hotter days, rolling thunderstorms, and impossibly green scenery with golden skies. Time slows, and the world is a quiet space teaming with life.   

Each piece in the front gallery evokes a feeling of lush ecstasy that makes up the tranquil beauty of summer days through vivid colors, alluring scenes, and mesmerizing textures. Betty Tompkins' work consists of tools such as an ax, a frypan, and a saw blade with painted scenes of nude figures relaxing and reclining in lush sceneries of green, contrasting the luxury and labor of these long days. Blue Eye (For Herb), by Andrew Brischler, cuts through the space bringing the omniscient blue of cloudless skies inside. Jose Alvarez (D.O.P.A.)'s work brings the viewer on a journey of splendor and joy using vibrant colors and materials like feathers, quills, and mica. His work overpours with positive and moving energy, radiating out in mesmerizing layers. 

The back gallery shifts to deeper and darker works reflecting ethereal nights. When the day's heat lingers and subsides, the air is sticky and heavy with humidity, a certain magic that can only be experienced in the warm embrace of a coastal summer night. It feels like a dream. 

Deborah Brown's painting Dark Horse reveals a dark shoreline with a woman, a horse, and her dogs looking out into the night speckled with stars, with a sharp horizon line defined by an unseen moon. Sanctuary, a painting by Marc Dennis, depicts a platter of rotting fruit and vegetables that stands boldly against a solid black background. A sickly-sweet scene testing the temporal and ephemeral nature of a bountiful summer. Similarly, Midnight Velvet, by Nancy Lorenz, has a black velvet background with a delicately laid landscape gilded in gold, creating a star-littered sky over whispy hills.  

The title of the group exhibition, Tupelo Honey, is inspired by a honey from Florida and southern Georgia made from the blossoms of the Ogeechee tupelo gum tree that lines waterways. Tupelo Honey embodies enduring, golden afternoons and serene evenings in the southern summers of Florida. Long summer days and coastal summer nights leave an indelibly sweet taste in our memories, where time stretches lazily and nature's embrace is at its most exquisite.  

Written by Eloise Janssen