Opening Reception: Wednesday, July 15, 6–8 pm
Derek Eller Gallery is pleased to present Trip the Light Fantastic, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Sarah Gamble. Employing a visual vocabulary which moves fluidly between abstraction and representation, Gamble conjures fantastical alternate worlds frequently rendered in a mix of expressionistic gestures peppered with jewel-like passages.
Come, and trip it as ye go
On the light fantastic toe.
— from L’Allegro by John Milton, 1645
Summoning Bacchus, Venus, and Zephyr, Milton’s evocation of a joyful dance celebrating life’s idyllic moments is almost hallucinatory in its vivid description. Gamble channels this euphoric sentiment in her new paintings, depicting ancient rock formations, cosmic night skies, and lush rose gardens captured in transitional moments between reality and fantasy. With an interest in exploring among other things time travel, transcendence, pre life, and inner life, she explains, “I often paint forms or objects in different states of manifestation in an effort to show energy or matter coming apart or reorganizing itself into new forms.”
One series of paintings features architectural structures shrouded in dense foliage; sixteen illuminated windows peering out from the green brush like glittering eyes. Gamble likens the composition to the compound eye of an insect. In one, entitled Spider, the windows are both glimpses of interior worlds and stars within a vast alternate outer space. Gamble renders each windowpane as a multi-faceted pink crystal and precisely brushes the delicate branches and leaves of the greenery, creating an otherworldly feathery veil over sparkling constellations.
Sarah Gamble (b. 1974, lives and works in Philadelphia, PA) has had solo exhibitions at Fleisher/Ollman, Philadelphia, PA (2024); Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta, GA (2016); Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, PA (2015); and Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art, Roswell, NM (2014), among others. She was awarded a Yaddo Residency in 2025, a MacDowell fellowship in 2023, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts in 2009, and completed a yearlong residency at the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program, New Mexico in 2014. Gamble received her MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2001 and her BFA from the Corcoran Gallery College of Art and Design, Washington, DC in 1998. This will be her first solo exhibition with the Gallery.