“Mystical and Realistic: Works by Ramon Peralta and Ismael Checo” continues through Nov. 2, David E. Rodale and Rodale Family Galleries, The Baum School of Art, Allentown.

“Ramon and Ismael have been friends for 30 years,” says Baum School of Art Executive Director Shannon Fugate. “They both have really interesting approaches to their work and there are lots of ways that the work is contrasting, but they also complement each other.”

Their roots are in the Dominican Republic. Peralta’s surreal works form the “mystical” part of the exhibit. Checo’s oils are more grounded in reality. While their paintings share similarities in approaches to color, attention to detail and brushwork, their differences in subject matter play well off of each other.

Peralta’s “Naturaleza” (2019, oil on canvas, 40 in. x 60 in.), a fantastical still life featuring a pineapple, produce, flowers and objects composed of scrolls that bridge the space between the real and the imaginary.

This trademark element in Peralta’s work is inspired by his father, a merchant who routinely wrapped the products he sold in paper.

“The focus is on the natural,” says Peralta, “In their raw form.” The artist painted from a still life grouping he assembled. “The eyes of the pineapple that’s my interpretation,” he says of the tiny scrolls that depict the eye-like elements of the pineapple’s skin. He pointed out where he incorporated scrollwork in his artistic interpretation of other elements in the work.

“The other paintings are an invention, a creation from my mind,” Peralta says, referring to other paintings in the exhibition, many of which feature stylized rolls of paper assembled together to depict human-like and robotic forms.

“Contra Luz” (2012, oil on canvas, 36 in. x 24 in.) by Checo is a portrait of a girl dressed warmly while standing by the cold marble sculpture of “Ugolino and His Sons,” by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. Checo says the painting is part of a series he created that includes some of his favorite artists.

“‘Contra Luz’ talks about the contrast from the main figure to the children in the background. She is overdressed and they are undressed. Her skin is dark and they so white,” says Checo. “I used a combination of live model and some photograph of the sculpture from the Met [Metropolitan Museum of Art].”

Born in Santiago, Dominican Republic, Peralta majored in painting and drawing at the School of Fine Arts in Santiago and graduated with a degree in fine arts. Peralta studied drawing at The Art Students League of New York, New York City, after emigrating to the United States.

The self-employed artist works out of his Allentown studio and has a studio in the Banana Factory, Bethlehem.

Born in San Jose de las Matas, Dominican Republic, Checo studied painting at Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santo Domingo, the Arts Students League of New York, and as an apprentice in Andalusia, Bucks County, with Nelson Shanks. Checo is executive director of the New York-based Colectivo de Artistas Visuales Dominico-Amaricanos.

Checo teaches painting and drawing at the Rye Art Center, Rye, N.Y. He has a studio in Astoria, Queens, New York City.

“Mystical and Realistic: Works by Ramon Peralta and Ismael Checo,” through Nov. 2, David E. Rodale and Rodale Family Galleries, The Baum School of Art, 510 W. Linden St., Allentown. Gallery hours 9 a.m. - 9 p.m. Monday - Thursday, 9 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. Friday - Saturday, Closed Sunday. www.baumschool.org; 610-433-0032

“Gallery View” is a column about artists, exhibitions and galleries. To request coverage, email: Paul Willistein, Focus editor, pwillistein@tnonline.com