Exhibiting at Dacia Gallery is Patricia Watwood's New Narratives, a recent body of paintings and works on paper addressing the relationship between humanity, technology, environment, and the arts. Patricia engages us with an “allegorical combination of women who embody the sacred feminine within a narrative setting of our changing environment.” Gaia, Zephyrs, and fallen Caryatids make a concerted appeal to bring the shifting baseline to our awareness. Graceful forms, like bright talismans of beauty, incite positive action toward a more sustainable environmental future. Patricia Watwood speaks about her work in the New Narratives exhibition catalogue available for download on her site.

The Enemies of Progress recently opened at CK Contemporary in San Francisco. Conor Walton's allegorical still lifes and figurative paintings will be on view until the 7th of December. In this current body of work, Walton challenges time-honored notions of progress and boldly examines the interrelationship of culture and nature. For more information visit Walton's social media page.

Muses of Mount Helikon III group show opens this Friday, 30th of October, at Helikon Gallery. From the press release, "This annual show is an invite-only exhibit of artists from across the United States, known for being large, eclectic, colorful, and featuring high-level work in the illustrative arts - a loose term encompassing portraiture, figurework, illustration, and narrative, imaginative artwork." Classical forms meet abstract shapes in Velification a modern tondo by participating artist Damian Chavez. Show runs until the 12th of December.

Francisco Benitez's current exhibition is being held at KoArt Gallery, Catania, Italy.  In Doña Inés Lost Her Slipper, Benitez creates two fictional female characters documenting facets of their psychology and relationship. In addition to addressing the complex dynamic of their relationship Doña Inés Lost Her Slipper is directly inspired by Benitez's Spanish and Native American heritage.  For more information please visit the KoArt social media page.

With two major exhibitions scheduled for October, Gromyko Semper will inaugurate the month with his solo show Thy Fernal Gaze which will be held at the SMX Aura under Gallery Nine. More than thirty of Semper's recent artworks will be showcased, including drawings, paintings, and three-dimensional visionary art. A private viewing will be held the 8th of October. Public opening:  9th – 11th October. For more information please visit ManilArt2015.

S&A also extends its congratulations to Gromyko Semper for his upcoming participation in the X Florence Biennale at the historic Fortezza da Basso. Gromyko is one of nine artists chosen by the International Selection Committee to represent the Philippines at this year's biennale.  The Biennale theme of Art and the Polis is described by Rolando Bellini as: "The myth of the ideal city inherited from classical antiquity revived in Laudatio florentinae urbis by Leonardo Bruni and the treatises by Leon Battista Alberti, who wrote his De Pictura in fifteenth-century Florence, where the Plato’s city of philosophers was gaining momentum. From then on the virtual dialogue between the arts has been reawakening through illuminating ‘tokens’ of the past, which are enrichment for the present". An extraordinary event in contemporary art, The Florence Biennale is also a partner in the UN Program 'Dialogue among Civilizations' and promotes the Ethics Charter of the New Millennium Artist. Exhibition date: 17th to 25th of October.

Location:

Spadolini Pavilion within the Fortezza da Basso
Viale Filippo Strozzi, 1, 50129 Firenze
Italy

The Three Muses (Nature, Art, Philosophy) by Chris Sedgwick.

Unspoken by Caitlin Karolczak. Oil, encaustic, antique metal pigment on panel; 18" x 14".