By Emma Barhydt
There are moments when color feels less like something you see and more like something you enter. That is the quiet promise of Floral Conversations, opening January 15 at the Bendheim Gallery, where the Greenwich Arts Council presents new paintings by local artist Toby Sue Gordon. From the moment you step inside, the work shifts the atmosphere — not dramatically, not theatrically, but unmistakably. The room brightens. Your pace slows. Looking becomes a pleasure again.
Gordon’s paintings place flowers front and center, yet they avoid the conventions we often associate with floral imagery. These are not formal arrangements or delicate studies meant to decorate a space. They are immersive, energetic, and confidently scaled, cropped close so that petals, stems, and bursts of color fill the canvas. The effect is immediate and generous. The paintings don’t wait to be decoded; they welcome you in.
What makes Floral Conversations especially engaging is its balance between accessibility and depth. At first glance, the works offer pure visual delight — saturated hues, dynamic compositions, surfaces built with thick, expressive oil paint. But stay a little longer and the experience deepens. Gordon is interested in fragments rather than wholes: the curve of a petal caught mid-motion, the intersection of colors where structure quietly emerges, the subtle geometry that reveals itself through attention. These are paintings that reward both casual viewing and sustained looking.
The exhibition is thoughtfully conceived as an experience rather than a sequence of individual statements. As you move through the Bendheim Gallery, the works begin to relate to one another. Warm tones glow across the room, balanced by cooler passages that offer moments of calm. Reds press forward; greens ground them. Yellows seem to hold light within their layers. There is a sense of rhythm here — a visual conversation unfolding across the walls — that makes the gallery feel cohesive and alive.
Gordon’s sensitivity to color is the result of a lifetime immersed in visual language. A graduate of Syracuse University’s School of Visual and Performing Arts, she began her career as an art director in the fashion industry, where composition, impact, and clarity are essential. Later, working alongside her father in the textile business, she developed a deep understanding of pattern, surface, and how color behaves materially — how it absorbs light, reflects it, and changes depending on context. That experience quietly underpins the confidence of these paintings. Nothing here feels accidental.
Now living and working in Riverside, Gordon brings this body of work back to a community she knows well. Seeing her paintings fill the Bendheim Gallery carries a particular resonance. It underscores one of the enduring strengths of the Greenwich Arts Council: its commitment to making serious, joyful art part of everyday civic life. You don’t need to travel far or prepare yourself intellectually to encounter work of substance. It’s right here, upstairs on Greenwich Avenue, open to anyone willing to step inside.
There is something deeply satisfying about that accessibility. Floral Conversations does not demand expertise. It asks only for attention — and gives generously in return. You can spend five minutes letting color wash over you, or linger longer and notice how the paintings begin to shift as you move through the space. The experience adapts to the viewer, which is part of its quiet strength.
The opening reception on Thursday, January 15, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., offers an opportunity to gather and mark the beginning of a new exhibition and a new year. These moments matter more than we sometimes realize. Showing up — to a gallery, to an opening, to an evening shaped by shared looking — is how local culture is sustained. Art thrives not only because it is made, but because it is witnessed.
Ultimately, Floral Conversations offers a sense of ease. It reminds us that beauty does not need explanation and that joy can be found in close attention. Gordon’s paintings hold space for that experience — warm, confident, and quietly uplifting. Whether you arrive with intention or happen upon the exhibition by chance, you are likely to leave with something subtle but lasting: a lightness, a renewed openness, a reminder of how much vitality lives in color.
Floral Conversations, works by Toby Sue Gordon, is on view at the Bendheim Gallery, 299 Greenwich Avenue, second floor, from January 15 through February 26. The opening reception takes place Thursday, January 15, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
