The Hidden Lantern Gallery in Rosemary Beach announced the opening of Birds in Flight, a new solo show featuring sumptuous surfaces of metallic and Venetian plaster by Tennessee-based artisan Kimberly Fox Malone.

The decorative element of Malone’s work, coupled with its natural subjects — scenes of birds silhouetted against the moon’s quiet light, or a labyrinth of branches creating an organic geometric pattern — call to mind the wall panels of turn-of-the-century high society drawing rooms in Paris (or perhaps in the Carnegie mansion in New York).

These characteristics divulge Malone’s decade of work in the luxury home sector, producing award-winning high-end murals, wall finishes and special order canvases for designers. Her expertise with specialty plaster, metals and glazes led to the formation of this new collection of works, bridging the realms of fine and decorative art.

Malone creates her surfaces by first sculpting shapes on a canvas or panel with various types of Venetian and metallic plasters and tinted gesso. The new structural elements of the work are then colored with acrylic and oil glazes. Malone does not use brushes, but rather water, to manipulate the paint to simulate a natural flow that would occur over time in a weathered stone. The results are serene and contemporary. With a decorator’s eye and an artisan’s hand, Malone’s work strikes the right note with interior design trends in style and palette.

Birds in Flight is now on display at The Hidden Lantern until January 6, 2013.