“AT FIRST LIGHT”: This oil on panel work by Rye Tippet is featured in his third solo show at Morpeth Contemporary in Hopewell. An opening reception is on Friday, November 8 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Morpeth Contemporary, 43 West Broad Street, Hopewell, has announced the opening of its latest exhibition, “At First Light,” the third solo show for painter Rye Tippet. Alongside Tippet’s paintings will be a selection of metal sculptures by fellow Bucks County, Pa., artist Justin Long, in his debut with the gallery. The opening reception is on Friday, November 8, from 6 to 8 p.m. The exhibition will be on view through Sunday, November 24.

Tippet’s latest paintings are mysterious and allusive, yet involving, urging closer examination. Their surreal nature ignites viewers’ curiosity, inviting thoughts about where dreams join reality, how the past informs the present, and whether the departed commune with the living.

Tippet said of his work, “I don’t know where it comes from, it only just is. They come to me like a horse in the dark. It’s all just a dream that never stops working.” 

Tippet is a storyteller; stories from the humorous to the somber, the historically accurate to the highly imagined. Those familiar with Tippet’s work will recognize the poetic visual dialogue between his illustrated subjects and their evocative landscapes, these two primary elements intrinsically linked in the stories he is telling. Ghosts warm themselves by a wood stove in a barren winter field, a horse gallops across the early morning sky, great phantom sea creatures loom above the trees, and a resurrected ship defies the gravitational pull of the vast waters it once sailed, escorted by the spirits of those it protected.

Tippet is self-taught — he scoured dozens of art history books as a young, developing artist, informing his technique and helping to build his symbolic vocabulary. According to the gallery, “Tippet’s reverence for the past is unmistakable, yet we do see him give equal attention to the present world. At times, intersecting the two. Whether recalling the former grandeur of man-made machines, or the beauty and majesty of living creatures, all are granted importance through their great scale, set against his sweeping landscapes and expansive, emotive skies. These detailed subjects fill his large compositions, as if having rushed to the fore to greet us and command our attention.”

Working out of his Bucks County studio, Long has created sculpture for over 20 years, and also expresses a respect for things discarded and forgotten. Long’s “Farm Series” draws inspiration from the local countryside and the tools that worked the fields of past. He collects artifacts from surrounding farmlands then reimagines them into new expressive beings, using techniques of the past and present. These lively creatures are animated by a skilled combination of gesture and abstraction. His playful bird, animal and human forms create an easy conversation with some of Tippet’s whimsical characters. Their surfaces, a warm patina of rusted steel, beautifully underscores their years of utilitarian purpose.

According to Morpeth, “We may view works from each of these artists as memorials to the present and the past, the living and the dead, adding weight to the legacies they represent. They form connections and remind us that we are not only observers of these stories, but indeed all part of a grand continuum.”

For more information, visit morpethcontemporary.com.