This exhibition features Gloria Garfinkel’s Obi series, in particular. As a devoted Japanophile (after several trips to that country), she uses Japanese culture as her springboard for creating a series of horizontal works that celebrate features of color, form, texture and design indigenous to their culture. Her Obi pieces “have an overall horizontal format indicating landscape, however, the abrupt angles that accent the design speaks equally of mid-Modern architecture as it does to the harmony of nature.” Borrowing from Japanese lifestyle illustrations from previous centuries (Ukiyo-e), these assemblages cleverly interpose various patterns and colors to form vibrant, other-worldly landscapes of our imagination. The exhibition catalogue states it best as, “this combination or interweaving of nature and architecture recalls Garfinkel’s study of Japanese culture and art, while the mix of delicately sweeping narratives and nuance elicits joy and optimism.