EKDgallery
THREE GENERATIONS OF ARTISTS
WITH A PASSION FOR COLOR

New Vistas:
Erin Reid, Karen Reid,
Don Munson, and Lorna Ritz
April 26 - June 21
Although the world is just beginning to open its doors and freely exchange palms, artists have been continuing to arrive at New Vistas all this time. This online exhibition featuring Erin Reid, Karen Reid, Don Munson, and Lorna Ritz opens April 26 through June 21 at www.ekdgallery.com/newvistas.
​We began dreaming of EKD Gallery in July 2019, when the world and its correspondences were limited to a screen. ​Every week, we found solace in the ritual of Facetime calls where discussions varied from recipes, the size of a paintbrush, and how to continue exhibiting our work. This close bond soon became business as we took interest in experimenting in the digital realm, where art is shared on many walls.
Almost two years have passed and our pixelated environments have become a beloved creative project, fluxing in harmony with our lives as artists and humans. ​Just as we've landscaped our lives, our work, and this project, New Vistas exhibits the shifting visual organization between nature, design, and connection. A landscape cannot be simply defined by a pleasant view. Land is the memory of our movement and a connection to our roots.
This is a landscape show emphasizing horizons composed of light, motion, illusion, and memory. The perceptions of this external world are physical, psychological, and even visceral. These New Vistas are natural scenes consumed and expressed with the evidence of creative digest.
Our sites are ever changing. We hope you enjoy each view.
. - Erin, Karen, & Don
Moving forward. I re-emerge. Six new abstract concept visions. ‘Landscaping’ made of multiple elements. A cohesive culmination of graphic and organic forms with an illusion of realistic elements. Color is paramount developing the impact of these new vistas.
Don Munson
"When I took up rollerblading, my body behaved like a toddler. Skating seemed simple enough until I stumbled back to the surface like a newborn horse. I stood like an alien between concrete monoliths, empty pools, and pipes on an abstract plane. Engaging in the art of action in a misunderstood environment urged me to re-visualize the act of painting. I dissolved representational painting in trade for discovery. I approached the canvas as a painter learning once again how to paint -- as an adult learning how to walk. Landscape was no longer defined by space and form. This environment could only be understood as a moving ground beneath the feet, as the tension and release of muscle, as freedom of action, without mental analysis. The mobility of paint became the interpreter of this phenomenon between physicality and space. Within these portals of color are Casts of Movement.
Erin Reid
"I have been drawing the Holyoke Mountain Range for 36 years. The main peak has a shape I can never get right the first many times I draw it. I always have to find it again, each drawing. The search is what give the drawing its inner life. Both the day and seasonal light changes on the mountains constantly, and I go after that with curiosity. I set my easel up overlooking one of the only east-west axis mountain ranges in this country, formed by glaciers. I work and rework each drawing for many days, obtaining a specific light from the sky falling on the mountains that will never bring these particular colors again. Everything in the drawing has equal importance; the tree is as important as the mountain behind it, the sky as important moving behind them, as important the foreground coming up towards the viewer. Everything is democratically related, a conglomeration of spatial movements interrelated, needing each other to survive."
​
Lorna Ritz
These series of paintings I am working on are the results of my daily
ritual of walking. I have been walking this same route routinely
observing shape and light as the seasons change. I am exploring
ways of breaking down the imagery into simple yet thoughtful ideas on
concepts of color, light and form. This allows me to express my raw
connection to nature and experience a deeper relationship of its core.
The imagery is based on memory and the energy of the natural world.
​
Karen Reid
Like a Fresco, setting out colors for the days work. Silver planned for six different paintings today. Treat the acrylic no different than oils.
Let them dry overnight.
A note on purchases:
​
In correlation with New Vistas, we are introducing
the ability to purchase the artwork directly from our site.
​
Please note, we are in the beginning stages of integrating purchase options.
Through Paypal, you will be charged for the price of the artwork, plus Massachusetts sales tax. You will be invoiced separately for shipping.
Once we've finalized your transaction, we will send a confirmation of purchase and finalize shipping details.
​
Thank you for your cooperation as we embark on this next journey.
​
-E, K, D
​
​
​
Lorna Ritz received her MFA from the Cranberry Academy Art, Michigan and her BFA from Pratt Institute, New York. She has shown extensively throughout New England, alongside a notable teaching career at major institutions such as RISD, University of Minnesota, and Dartmouth College. She has traveled through the U.S. Information Embassy to teach overseas in Malta and Honduras and has exhibited with the Art-in-Embassies Program, D.C. in Africa, Guatemala, and Caracas. Ritz is included in numerous public and private collections including The University of Michigan Museum of Contemporary Art and the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art. She currently works out of her barn studio in Amherst, MA. CV
​
Karen Reid studied at The Art Institute of Boston, The South Shore Art Center in Cohasset, MA. The Fuller Museum in Brockton, MA. The Danforth Museum in Framingham, MA. and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA where she earned her diploma in Fine Arts. She has studied many forms of fine art including drawing, painting, ceramics, monoprint and encaustics. Presently, her work centers on drawing and painting using oil paint, watercolor, wax and charcoal. Currently, Karen works out of her studio in Oxford, MA. and teaches painting and expressive art classes. Her work has been exhibited throughout New England. CV
​
Erin Reid is an interdisciplinary artist that plays with nuance. Her studies at the School of the Art Institute for Chicago directed her interest in painting, film, performance, and installation. Erin has exhibited in Chicago, Connecticut, and throughout Massachusetts. She currently works at the Worcester Art Museum and pursues independent studies in photography and dance. She is a Cofounder of EKD Gallery, an online gallery opened in September 2020 alongside her mother, Karen Reid, and artist, Don Munson. CV
​
In a career spanning over fifty years, Don Munson has dedicated his practice to the fusion of graphic design and painting as an esteemed illustrator, graphic designer, painter, and poet. His work is in such public collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Heckscher Museum, and the Society of Illustrators Museum of American Illustration. Don has taught drawing, illustration, art history, design, typography and advertising at the Parsons School of Design, Pratt Institute, and City University of New York. Don served as the Division Vice President and Art Director for Ballantine/Del Rey/Fawcett Books at Random House where he developed seven original typeface fonts and created covers for over 500 books. He has been nominated for a Grammy for his work on the Chicago VI album cover and held clients such as Readers Digest and The New York Times. Don currently works in his "Red Stair Studio" in his home in Longmeadow, MA and recently published his first novella, Edmund: A Voice Unheard in July 2021. CV