Ochi Gallery is pleased to present the work of Steve Miner and William Lewis. The show will run December 28 – February 8 at 350 Walnut Avenue with an opening reception Friday, December 28, 5-8 PM.

A TV and film director, Steve Miner applies his exceptional ability to construct narrative to his paintings. Presenting a series of isolated landscapes, groups of people and single portraits, Miner demonstrates a keen attention to both the technical aspects of painting and the psychological intricacies that build story and drama. His paintings are anecdotal if not theatrical—sometimes they appear to be the background from a movie, other times, a film still, or perhaps even a scene from a dream. They are figurative and painterly, both suggesting and denying the notion that they document an actual time and place.

William Lewis reveals a similar interest in painterly details, the human psyche and telling a story. Paintings of cabins belonging to famous and infamous historical figures such as Ted Kaczynski, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edgar Allen Poe convey the element of isolation and loneliness sought out by such eccentric individuals. And his taxidermy animal heads are as uncannily humorous as they are haunting, evoking a peculiar melancholia.

Miner, an American film director, has directed many television programs including the pilots for The Wonder Years, Dawson’s Creek and Switched At Birth. He also has directed over a dozen movies including Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken, Forever Young, House and Lake Placid. This is the inaugural exhibition of his art work, though Miner has been painting and drawing most of his life. Lewis has family roots in the mid-western and southern United States. He lived in New York City and Paris during his art school years attending Parsons School of Design, Hunter College and New York University.

Boise has been his home since 1997. Lewis’s paintings have been included in three Idaho Triennial exhibitions, the Boise Visual Chronicle and are permanently installed in the Boise Public Library’s Hillcrest branch. Most recently Lewis’s work was featured in the Sun Valley Center’s Making Camp exhibition. Lewis was a recipient of the 2011 Fellowship award of the Idaho Commission on the Arts.