Looking for America, For Love, for Innocence

Looking for America,  For Love, for Innocence
Heat, beach, summer, freedom all glow from the canvas in Sophie Treppendahl’s “Swimming in the Yuba,” featured in the Kenise Barns Fine Art gallery show in Kent, Conn., called “We’ve all gone to look for America.” Courtesy of Kenise Barnes Fine Art, Kent, Conn.

Kenise Barns, director of Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Kent, Conn., describes the inspiration for a show at her gallery until May 1: “The exhibition title is taken from the well-loved Simon and Garfunkel ballad recounting a bus trip across America, and the hours spent looking out the window as the landscapes slide by. The song and the exhibition share a sentiment of longing and searching for meaning. In the wake of the past year, I think we are yearning for the America that we remember in our mind’s eye. “‘Michigan seems like a dream to me now…’.”

The show title is “We’ve all gone to look for America,” a line from the almost operatic 1968 song “America,” which captures a time that was more innocent, when a young couple could take off for a trip across the country in a Greyhound bus, sharing love, cigarettes, jokes and insecurities. None of it would (really) be possible today; the jokes they share and the people they see might not even make sense to a modern generation who don’t know what gabardine is and perhaps don’t realize that bow ties are not meant to be clipped on.

Paintings in the show by Sophie Treppendahl in particular capture the feeling of being in the sun at the beach, in sneakers. No masks. Also in the show is work by David Konigsberg, Thomas Sarrantonio and Francis Sills.

The gallery is open Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m., and by appointment. To learn more, go to www.kbfa.com.

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