Transmission Gallery is pleased to present Maija Peeples-Bright: EnorMoose Mountains and Peacock Peaks, a solo exhibition of paintings and ceramics featuring a selection of work spanning five decades, with a special showing of objects and artifacts by Maija’s circle at the Candy Store Gallery, including Robert Arneson, Clayton Bailey, Roy De Forest, David Gilhooly, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, and Peter VandenBerge.
Maija Peeples-Bright (aka Maija Zack, Maija Woof, Maija Peeples) was born in Latvia in 1942, and moved to the US as a refugee with her family at age nine. As a math major at UC Davis in the 60’s she rounded out her graduation requirements by taking a first art class, which happened to be taught by William T. Wiley. Smitten by the process, she changed majors launching into a long career as an artist.
In the late 60’s and Maija and, then husband, David Zack, regularly hosted young artists, the likes of Joan Brown, Manuel Neri, Bruce Connor and the Candy Store Gallery crew, in their wildly colored San Francisco Victorian, the Rainbow House. In its day, the Rainbow house was well known for the extravagant murals she painted on the walls and ceilings throughout as well as for her project of painting the exterior using every color made by Dutch Boy.
Peeples-Bright showed at the Candy Store Gallery, in Folsom, for more than two decades in numerous solo exhibitions, as well as with other Candy Store Gallery regulars, now well known to the art world.
In her career beyond the Candy Store, Peeples-Bright pursued an irreverent and spirited aesthetic, expounding on her signature colorful critters and wild kingdom imagery in an outpouring of paintings and ceramic pieces. Her studio practice continues to this day, with her most recent painting, EnorMOOSE Everest included in this exhibition.
