QUIET MUSIC

Andra Norris Gallery is delighted to present a collection of new work from four renowned California artists: Stephen Namara, Gary Bukovnik, Brooks Anderson, and Tamera Avery. The exhibition includes paintings, drawings, and watercolors, all created using an inherent universal visual language – like quiet music – with a capacity to move and hold us spellbound.

Stephen Namara
African American artist Stephen Namara is known for his depictions of anonymous faces, mysterious still lifes, and imagined landscapes, each of which is often a “snapshot” of a moment from his life, reflecting the artist’s signature low-key moody character. His images speak of isolation, and they offer space within which we can experience our own mental and emotional reactions without the need for academic explanation. His unsurpassed drawing and painting skills have enabled him to produce a highly acclaimed body of work that is globally recognized.

Gary Bukovnik
Master watercolorist Gary Bukovnik fuses sensual vitality with fluid yet powerful colorations to create floral images of great depth and intensity that convey a feeling of being truly alive. His paintings – both large and small scale – speak in a universal language of simplicity, elegance, and joy. They have been associated with the San Francisco Symphony for the decades during which his original works graced the walls of San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall, and they and have become intrinsically associated with music. With his International solo museum exhibitions across the United States, Europe, and China, his splendid works are enjoyed worldwide.

Brooks Anderson
Brooks Anderson’s eloquent contemporary paintings are meditations on land, sea, and sky. The powerful realist works are created with oil on canvas and panel, and they often depict scenes that include north and central California coastal vistas. His compositions can serve as metaphors for human nature, as the scenes are spiritually evocative explorations of truth through nature’s opulent offerings.

Tamera Avery
The subjects of Tamera Avery’s oil-on-canvas paintings – often her adult children and their associates – are portrayed as unassuming youths wearing artist-fabricated costumes and masks that augment their agency and the space they take up. Her portraiture work, which is included in the exhibition, is at the intersection of contemporary times, fraught with social, political, cultural, and environmental considerations, and myriad possible futures, conjured by armor-clad youths standing in the path of destruction.