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Opening January 3, 2012 at our West Coast location :
128 E. Canon Perdido Street . Santa Barbara CA 93101
Gina Werfel / POLYPHONICS 31 January - 4 March . 2012
Werfel’s works are poetic, even dreamlike, depictions of nature that emerge from the collaboration of the playful imagination and the discipline eye and hand, and attain their own reality. DeWitt Cheng from the catalogue ‘Gina Werfel: Persistence of Vision’ . March 2011
Developing from her earlier plein-air work, Werfel’s recent paintings consider natural forces through a delicate balance between figuration and abstraction. The oil on canvas and works on paper display deconstructed landforms with energized figures pulsing through them. Energetic paint strokes and merging color washes evoke the transitory instability of the landscape we inhabit. Elsewhere, diagonal marks lead the eye into fragile webs of color from which can be gleaned the artist’s local verdant landscape of northern California and memories of her recent residencies in France and Italy. Werfel transports the viewer through urban sprawl, leafy foliage and towards the calm waters of the Mediterranean by means of wide, loose brushstrokes and atmospheric color. The paintings combine the sun-drenched lighting and colorful richness of the Venetian School with the bold, evocative mark making of the Abstract Expressionists to present renderings of fragmentary, chaotic spaces. Robert Berlind, writing about Werfel’s solo exhibition in New York in Art in America, observes that her ‘abstractions could be looking to Tiepolo by way of Joan Mitchell’.
The title of the exhibition makes reference to the musicality that emerges from the paintings. In a fashion reminiscent of Kandinsky, Werfel’s patterns of juxtaposing colors and shapes link to musical arrangements. The paintings contain both lyricism and spontaneity; abstractions emerge from the canvas like jazz improvisations. Works such as Dancer present the human figure in motion, interacting with the surrounding landscape. The human and nature at times dissolve and intermix in dynamic sequences of paint. Werfel’s work continually brings the viewer back to the matter of boundaries: between figuration and abstraction, order and chaos, nature and human.
Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul. Wassily Kandinsky
Gina Werfel is Professor of Art at UC Davis and was Chair of the Art and Art History Department from 2000-2005. She holds an MFA in painting from Columbia University, New York and has exhibited nationally since 1980. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships.
_________________________________________________________Up-Coming Exhibitions :
The MFAs : With a Lot to Say March 6 - 27, 2012
Alice Hutchins | Magnetic Force April 2012 __________________________________________________________________________
Past Exhibitions at the West Coast location :
Marie Schoeff / TRACES 3 - 29 January . 2012 TRACES refers to absence, memory and loss, all of which point to the source of what is left behind. A trace is proof of something that once existed but is now gone, a memory made tangible. To draw is to leave a remnant of the movement of the hand as it follows the eye or the imagination of the maker. Likewise, to trace is to discover by investigation. For me as an artist, to create through tracing is a methodology that enables me to conjure up an elusive image. My images come from within, from personal experiences and observations lodged in my memory. The images in this exhibition have their genesis in the human body, in particular the female form and its capacity for sustaining and giving life. I find a parallel between my subject matter – the female body -- and the generative quality of the trace drawing technique. Both are capable of transformation. This exhibition will feature dry point prints and trace drawings which were made during the last two years. During this time, I turned to printmaking as a means of expanding my practice. Drawing has always been integral to my studio work and is the essential beginning of these works. Marie Schoeff The Art, Architecture and Design Museum (ADAM) of the University of California, Santa Barbara presents Isaac Resnikoff: Foundation for a House Made of Air
November 14- December 22, 2011 Hours: Tuesday-Friday 11-5pm; Saturday 11-3pm
About the exhibition Isaac Resnikoff presents the disassembled sections of a home the viewer must construct in his or her mind. This phantom edifice calls to mind past or potentially future construction and explores current feelings of rootlessness and instability sparked by the global economic crisis.
PHIL ARGENT : Container Love . October 1 - November 6, 2011 Please click on the 'Reviews' page to read a review of this show.
Past Exhibitions from the summer 2011 season in Gloucester MA : SHAUN McNIFF : Responding to Place : rock, water, sky
1 – 31 August 2011
"For the past decade, my paintings have responded to the immediate surroundings of my home in Annisquam MA on Cape Ann.* The interaction between rock, water, and sky has been a familiar subject matter, comprising what I describe as the self-portrait – the collective relationships with people, places, and things.
My painting process usually begins with quick sketches. These drawings, whether done on site or with photographs I snap, help me internalize the physical qualities and begin to respond to them. Memory, paint, color, and experimentation with materials continue the process in my studio.
I live directly across from the Chard Wharfs in mid Lobster Cove, which were connected to our property from the early 19th century to the 1850s when Annisquam’s maritime commerce flourished. Researching the site deepened ties to these iconic wharfs; and I imagined them as links to the past and to passages between water and land – permanent spaces of here and beyond. My first wharf paintings were made in early summer 2010 and depicted the Chard property of the 19th century.
The current series, Responding to Place, began with a glimpse while driving down River Road as it approaches Leonard Street. The tide was low and the mud, shallow water, surrounding wharfs, and horizontal lines of the river and the distant Wingaersheek Beach conjured a design of abstract elements integrated with the physical world. This is the essence I strive to create in my paintings. In late summer 2010, I began adapting the wharfs into geometric compositions, diagonal shapes, and lines all of which are ingrained in me from the abstract expressionist paintings of the1970s.
I am attracted to how the wharfs combine simple and forceful features of line and mass, and how – especially at low tide – complex relationships emerge among sharp-edged pieces of granite. Although the stones are fixed in place, their surfaces create movement – a visual improvisation illuminated by the Cape’s light and defined by its shadows. I idolize this natural composition but never try to present it literally. I respond to what I see and paint the imagination that follows."
*This is documented in the video Under Squam Rock
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feGmBrLI5J4).
Shaun McNiff
August 2011
Shaun McNiff studied abstract expressionist painting with Theodoros Stamos in New York. His work as a founder in the field of expressive arts therapy has enabled him to include paintings in his numerous publications, as well as in his teaching and research on creative expression. In 2002, he became the first University Professor at Lesley University, Cambridge MA. He lives in Annisquam MA.
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July 7 - September 28 . 2011
ABOVE WITHIN BELOW : a sound installation by Cardon+McNulty
and NEW PHOTOGRAPHS by Stephanie Cardon
The Gallery is pleased to present ABOVE WITHIN BELOW, an exhibition combining recent photographs by Stephanie Cardon and a sound installation by Cardon+McNulty created for the studio space.
Visual artist Stephanie Cardon and composer/audio artist Marc McNulty have created a sonic and sculptural environment conveying sensations of instability and precariousness usually felt on a larger scale. With increasingly numerous and alarming accounts of disastrous floods, storms and quakes, Cardon+McNulty felt compelled to transform a place we would see as shelter into a space that evokes anything but safety. They hope to bring some tangibility to an experience that for many of us remains abstract, though perhaps increasingly less so.
The interior of the studio has been modified to exaggerate its existing floor-plan, with its angled wall, low ceiling and New England aesthetic. Light dynamically modifies the space in counterpoint to sound from opposing ends of the audible spectrum, creating an experience that is responded to viscerally rather than interpretively.
ABOVE WITHIN BELOW is the first of several collaborative experiments Cardon+McNulty plan to conduct along this theme. Both artists have worked individually on related topics.
Marc McNulty has described his compositions as 'cinema for the ear' and claims his hobby is 'chasing charged particles'. He collects vibrations caused by electro-magnetic disturbances in the radio-frequency spectrum, translating to an audible range. He composes multi-channel sound pieces that envelop the listener in these 'cinematic' environments. He has performed internationally, most recently at the New England Conservatory and has been a repeat guest on WZBC's Rare Frequency.
Stephanie Cardon's work, combining installation, writing, photography and video, creates a nexus of fiction and history, a place half-reliable, half-confabulated. Her pieces draw on storytelling, map spaces both visually and verbally, investigate historical texts and literary classics, create photographic archives. Her pieces seem to be about place, but often the space described is entirely fictional or strongly reinterpreted. Cardon has exhibited her work here and abroad, most recently at Kingston Gallery in Boston and at the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles, France.
Cardon's photographs, presented in the house, represent a small selection of recent images that relate to the studio installation. Her long standing interest in landscape and natural spaces has often guided her photography. Here we see a combination of attentive details and stark vistas: a Polyphemus Moth shuddering in the wind, a hillside of tangled brambles leading to a sand-blasted horizon, frozen grass and ice that takes on the quality of an X-ray. The images are somber observations gathered on solitary walks.
Stephanie Cardon holds an MFA from The Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston; a post-baccalaureate from The International Center of Photography, New York; and a BA (distinction) from the University of Oxford, UK. She is the recipient of scholarships from the National Endowment for the Arts, USA and Oxford University, UK; a project and travel grant from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France; and a fellowship from Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie, Arles, France. Link to installations, text, and photography : http://www.stephaniecardon.com/
Marc McNulty holds an MFA from The Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston. He has been involved in creating sound installations in galleries in the US and around the world – including Germany, Norway, Poland, Canada, Japan, Iceland, and France; and has given live performances nationally and internationally. Link to compositions : http://www.marcmcnulty.org/
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Past Exhibitions from our winter/spring 2011 location at
25 E. De la Guerra Street . Santa Barbara CA 93101 :
ACHROMATIC VARIATIONS
May 3 - 28 . 2011
Please click on the 'Reviews' page to read a review of this show.
The gallery is pleased to present a group show of contemporary work in a palette both restricted and lustrous : black + white + neutral. The artists in this exhibition are recognized both nationally and internationally, and their work is held in public and private collections throughout the US and abroad.
monotypes : Geoffrey Bayliss
drawings : Ann Diener, Mary Heebner, Marie Schoeff
photography : Gail Pine
paintings : Shelley Reed
memory and text : Linda Ekstrom
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NELL CAMPBELL
DUCK BLINDS : LOUISIANA
April 1 - 30 . 2011
Please click on the 'Reviews' page to read a review of this show.
The gallery is pleased to present DUCK BLINDS : LOUISIANA – a solo show of new photographs by Santa Barbara artist, Nell Campbell. Campbell documented these extraordinary structures between 2001-2006 in the waterways of southwestern Louisiana. Hunters built the duck blinds out of a mix of scrap wood, wire mesh, tree limbs, palmetto fronds, roseau cane and river foliage. Campbell's vivid photographs capture the originality and poetry of these camouflaged huts, each blind possessing a character all its own. Today, the building of duck blinds is limited. Campbell’s photographs preserve for us a unique passage in waterfowl hunting.
Campbell attended the University of California at Santa Barbara and is a graduate of the Brooks Institute of Photography, Santa Barbara. As freelance photographer, she is the recipient of numerous awards; and since 1995, has been Master Artist for the Arts Fund of Santa Barbara Teen Arts Mentor Program. She is a contributing writer to Photographers’ Forum Magazine and BW and Color Magazine. Her work is held in the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; The Berkus Collection, Santa Barbara County Arts Commission; and in private collections throughout the US.
Artist Statement
Duck blinds are structures built or manufactured to provide shelter and camouflage for hunters while awaiting the arrival of their prey. These particular duck blinds are all handmade using lumber and native plant materials such as palmetto fronds, Spanish moss, and roseau cane. One can assume that these duck blinds are a form of vernacular architecture, particular to Louisiana.
These blinds were found near Lake Charles, Louisiana which is situated in the southwestern corner of Louisiana. Specifically, the blinds are located in the Calcasieu River and its adjoining waterways and are only accessible by boat. The first photographs were made in December 2001 and the last photographs were made in July 2006, nine months after Hurricane Rita made landfall in southwestern Louisiana. All the images were made standing on the bow of a seventeen foot boat piloted by Denton Henrich. A Mamiya 7, a film camera with a 6x7 centimeter size negative, was used for all the photographs. With the exception of the largest print, the photographs are Type C prints made by myself, using an enlarger and a Kreonite paper processing machine.
The Calcasieu River and its environs are the waters on which I spent much of my youth — the river banks where my mother took me fishing when I was five and let me fish all day with an unbaited hook because she couldn’t bear to handle the worms, the worms that we dug up in our backyard; the river where I learned all the bends and turns while waterskiing as a teenager; the West Fork ferry where I lost my first tooth while eating a Peanut Butter Log in the backseat of my father’s 1952 emerald green Buick — the tooth that I threw out the window because I didn’t know that children lost their teeth. Nell Campbell I want to acknowledge Ray and Denton Henrich for discovering these duck blinds, for bringing them to my attention, and for ferrying me in their boat for countless hours to photograph the blinds. These photographs would not exist without their exceptional generosity and friendship and I am eternally grateful.
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ESTHER PULLMAN : g r e e n h o u s e s
March 1 - 26 . 2011
Please click on the 'Reviews' page to read a review of this show.
"Pullman transforms a small, out-of-season greenhouse with a plastic covering into a cerebral meditation on light, form and spatial volume. . . . an image of remarkable formal subtlety and beauty." Benjamin Genocchio . New York Times . April 2008
Pullman’s multi-panel panoramic photographs of greenhouses go far beyond documentation of plant species or botanical beauty. Her eye is searching for the unusual point of view and for the effect that light within the greenhouse has on defining form, creating patterns, shifting color. Taking advantage of the wide-angle lens, Pullman intentionally distorts reality, re-configuring spaces within the greenhouse for optimal effect.
Esther Pullman lives in Cambridge and Gloucester MA and works throughout the US and Europe. She received a BA from Smith College and her BFA and MFA from Yale University. She studied photography at The Art Institute, Boston and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her work is held in private and public collections in the US and the United Kingdom.
Becoming a photographer
I was trained as a graphic designer at Yale in the 1960’s and thirty years later turned to photography. To this new discipline I brought a rather formal background in two-dimensional design, color, typography and the crafts associated with the design profession at mid-century, including bookbinding, calligraphy, drafting, papermaking and, of course, photography. Walker Evans was the photography professor in my second year of graduate study. His influence on me grew over time as I had a chance to know him, enjoy his humor and wit, and become increasingly familiar with his explorations of the vernacular and the commonplace.
An interest in horticulture and garden design led me back to photography in the early 1990’s. It was then, with great surprise, that I discovered the ability to communicate emotion and personal sensibilities in my pictures. I found, hiding within photography’s apparent façade of fact, an emotionally charged and expressive medium. And, at this moment in time, realizing that my view and my feelings could be made tangible, I committed myself to becoming a photographer.
Esther Pullman
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MMULTIPLES : editions / series / US + UK artists
February 1 - 26 . 2011
Please click on the 'Reviews' page to read a review of this show.
A group show is not an easy one to curate, particularly when the group is diverse and work embraces multi media. The artists in this collective are of different generations and ethnic backgrounds, work in different climates, and – most importantly – have distinct aesthetics. A common notion needs to be found. In this instance, the art on view is united by the concept of multiples. Many of the works are editioned; others have been developed as a series, with each in the series holding its own but united thematically to all the others in the series, as in Christina Seely’s Metropolis 35o 41’N 139o 46’E (Tokyo) from the series ‘Lux;’ Neeta Madahar’s Suky with Cherry from the series ‘Flora;’ Juni Van Dyke’s Untitled pastels from the series ‘10x10;’ Paul Cary Goldberg’s platinum prints from the series ‘Recent Reflections;’ Steve Rosenthal’s photographs from the series‘White on White;’ and Geoffrey Bayliss’ drawings and monotypes from his series ‘Studio Still Lifes.’
Single works were chosen for the multiple images within them, as in Wayne McCall’sGrande Salon, Annotated or Dana Salvo's Pilar with Ofrenda. On another level, three of the artists -- Dawn Southworth, Joan Tanner and Rachel Perry Welty -- work with non-traditional materials and 'the things we toss.' Consider Southworth’s Untitled Burnt Offerings, Tanner's Trophy Podium and Welty's Fruit Sticker Drawings as multiple examples of that method. And many pieces in the show manifest ‘the multiple’ on several levels. Rana Begum’s silkscreens, Untitled, paired with her sculpture, Box Construction #95, is a case in point. Each of Begum’s silkscreens is a rippling cascade of innumerable colors which recede and advance as high-key striations play off one another; the accompanying bands of bold color in the diminutive boxes echo and multiply the vibrancy of the silkscreens.
Participating in MMULTIPLES are Geoffrey Bayliss . Rana Begum . Paul Cary Goldberg . Neeta Madahar . Wayne McCall . Steve Rosenthal . Dana Salvo . Christina Seely . Dawn Southworth . Joan Tanner . Juni Van Dyke. Works by many of these artists are in national and international collections, including : Santa Barbara Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Fogg Museum at Harvard University; DeCordova Museum, Lincoln Massachusetts; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, among others.
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Calm in the Landscape : Wildfires & Wilderness
new work by photographer Youngsuk Suh
January 4 - 31 . 2011 Please click on the 'Reviews' page to read the reviews of this show.
The gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of photography by Youngsuk Suh in which the artist continues his exploration of man's insistent attempt to tame the untameable and man's anxious desire to be 'in nature.' Suh chased brushfires throughout northern California during 2008/9 and these large-scale photographs capture awesome landscapes which depict people engaged in a host of activities -- gold mining, rafting, cycling, waterskiing -- all the while in the midst of a powerful threat from nature. As artist, Suh is influenced by the grand landscape painters and photographers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and these photographs are lush with the luminous tones and colors of these earlier masters.
Suh is Assistant Professor of Photography at UC Davis. He earned his BFA from the Pratt Institute in New York and his MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. His work is many public and private collections, including the Santa Barbara Museum of Art where he was recently featured in the museum’s show Everyday Realities. Suh was honored with a 2010 residency at the prestigious MacDowell Colony, the oldest artists’ colony in the United States.
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