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  My sincere thanks to everyone, too many to thank individually, who came to my "Passages" exhibition at the Dennos Museum , the reception, and the various talks and tours, bringing considerable creative art spirit. I enjoyed it and I hope you did as well. It was great to talk with everyone, I hope you found much to appreciate.

Offered by the Dennos Museum Center at Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City, "Passages: The Art of Ron Gianola" was a four month exhibition from September 15, 2023 to January 7, 2024. It was a retrospective of fifty-five years, featuring various creative phases and subjects; automotive, figures, landscapes, Hawaii, abstracted interiors, "Passage" series, abstract color fields, cells, drawings, & sketchbooks. Early on the exhibition expanded into the courtyard gallery with an additional twenty one large paintings, making a total of one hundred fifteen paintings and drawings in the exhibition and shop.

"You'll Know When You Get There" 5' X 15' acrylic
... title from Herbie Hancock...


Created for the performance of the Marcus Belgrave Jazz Concert
in the Milliken Auditorium of the Dennos Museum on April 13, 1996.
Recently entered the Permanent Collection of the Dennos Museum.

At the invitation of jazz musician Jeff Haas I painted “You’ll Know When You Get There” in 1996 to compliment the jazz music of the Marcus Belgrave Quintet, to be displayed above the band at Milliken Auditorium. The title is from Herbie Hancock.

Starting a fifteen foot piece with no preconceived intention, I reached down deep to create this, not knowing I would return to this source more than twenty years later.

Drawing from: my long time listening to, and playing, jazz and creative instrumental improvisational music, the Bitches Brew fusion esthetic of Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Weather Report, and the ongoing rich musical legacy of Detroit, my home for 45 years,

this musical color composition involves harmony, dissonance, rhythm, calm, tension, motion, rest, and balance, using improvisation over an intended or discovered structure.

This painting led to my current color harmony paintings based in part on the music on the 1100 albums of the European creative music label ECM.

“Both light and color evoking the inherent mystery and spiritual qualities of nature.” Mary McNichols Ph.D. Professor of Art History at the College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI. "The colors, lines and spaces start to listen and dance. Beautiful combinations and transitions, creates different layers of space and perspectives. The drift and spin of colors, levels and transitions create multilayer movement although it is flat. Amazing. Thank you." - Nik Bartsch, International ECM records Zen funk composer, pianist, bandleader, Zurich club owner.“ .. . color that is reaching down and scraping the human soul” Tony Suhy, musician

  

   

 


 
 
 

 

 

 

Interior 44 x 64 Acrylic Viewers Choice Award Northwest Michigan Regional Juried Exhibition Dennos Museum Center Permanent Collection of the Dennos Museum Center Traverse City, Michigan

Passage #6 40 x 48 oil First Place Award All Media Juried Exhibition Crystal Lake Art Center Frankfort, Michigan Sold

Psyche #6 40 x 48 oil Second Place Award 2007 All Media Juried Exhibition Crystal Lake Art Center Frankfort, Michigan

Summer Serenade 3' X 6' oil Honorable Mention 1996 Northwest Michigan Regional Juried Exhibition Dennos Museum Center, Traverse City, MI Juror: Maryann Wilkinson, Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI

Passage #15 36 x 12 oil

Passage #17 34 x 40 oil