Opening Reception - Dan Gottlieb "Before the Wind" and Donna Wesley Spencer "Shared Space"

Two exhibitions exploring the beauty and fragility of nature, Dan Gottlieb Before the Wind and Donna Wesley Spencer Shared Space open at Craven Allen Gallery on Saturday, January 24th with a reception from 4-6pm, and continue through March 21st.

The beauty and raw power of the natural world, always in flux, anchor Dan Gottlieb’s Before the Wind. Blending photography and painting, he creates luminous, layered images that capture movement, atmosphere, and transformation. The exhibition features recent works inspired by a 2025 residency at Bilpin International Grounds for Creative Initiatives in Australia. Immersion in the surrounding eucalyptus forests—and a historic winter windstorm sweeping north from the Antarctic—inspired breathtaking new works, including an infrared video projection capturing the forest’s heightened energy. Before the Wind continues Gottlieb’s decades-long exploration of landscapes shaped by human and natural forces, revealing their shifting, fragile beauty.

Donna Wesley Spencer’s Shared Space features a selection of hand-printed photographs inspired by her recently released book Recover & Release. Created in rescue facilities, wildlife refuges, and protected areas, the work centers on animals whose lives illuminate the broader forces threatening biodiversity, including habitat loss, climate change, and human action. Spencer’s photographs underscore the interdependence of all living beings, emphasizing that the fate of wildlife is inseparable from our own. The care in her approach to the processes of vellum over gold leaf and platinum palladium printing gives each image a distinguished and tactile quality.