Wendy Chidester

Oil painter Wendy Chidester represents contemporary realism. She puts old, venerated objects  – typically well-made, beautiful and solid – in the aesthetic and physical center of her pieces, paying homage not only to the sentiments those objects invoke (a pair of old-fashioned blue leather boots, an exquisite orange kid’s bicycle with training wheels), but also to the sheer quality of things made in the past. See Chidester’s Halcyon Days, a solo exhibit of 14 of her newest paintings, now on display at Gallery MAR Carmel. It’s a “collection of paintings of objects that have endured,” Chidester wrote in an artist statement. “I am drawn to objects that carry history.” Located at Dolores between Ocean and 7th, Carmel. Hours are 10am-5pm Monday-Thursday; 10am-7pm Saturdays; and 11am-5pm Sundays.