Tupelo Honey March 19, 2011

The Box contemporary art gallery proudly presents Tupelo Honey, a two-person show featuring the works of artists Jim Lorigan and Yevgeniya Mikhailik. This collection of original works will open at the Costa Mesa gallery on Saturday March 19, 2011, from 7:00 PM until 10:00 PM. The exhibition will run through Friday, May 6, 2011.

Once a year the White Tupelo tree, Nyssa ogeche, comes into bloom. For only a few weeks during springtime, it’s blossoms make the nectar necessary to produce one of the rarest, most exquisite, and highly prized honeys in the world. In tribute to this unique time of the year, The Box gallery presents an exhibition of corresponding artistic skill and pastoral beauty. Inspired by nature and narrative, the artworks of Jim Lorigan and Yevgeniya Mikhailik offer the viewer an intimate look into both fable and fantasy. Using bucolic innocence and pithy wisdom, these two artists reveal a rich visual language that is as enchanting and delicious as Tupelo Honey.

Master printmaker Jim Lorigan has been involved with fine art printmaking since 1972. He has worked as an art restorer of 16th and 17th century Dutch art and antiques, as owner and Master Printer of Watermark Printmaking Workshop, and now as a fulltime professor at College of the Canyons. His works bear a level of skill and mastery only paralleled by the ingeniousness of his thought provoking and amusing subjects.

Russian-born artist Yevgeniya Mikhailik uses print and watercolor to illustrate complex, yet tender, narratives. Her works often draw upon themes from Russian folklore, as well as her own experiences in her motherland, to create poignant, nostalgic fables rich with anthropomorphized emotion.