“There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterward you can remove all traces of reality.”― Pablo Picasso
In this exhibition, Read Between the Lines: Visual Abstraction, a group exhibition, featuring the work of Carla Goldberg, Karen Gutfreund, Daniel Healey, Michelle Mansour and Rosalio Vargas. As Picasso stated, you must start with something. Each of these artists explore the manipulation and analysis of reality in the realm of their unique, artistic expression. The exhibition will be on display at The McLoughlin Gallery February 10 – March 11, 2017. Carla Goldberg is endlessly fascinated by the cool aqua colors and weird patterns of light dancing on the surface and bouncing off the bottom of swimming pools. The shimmering, moving light represented in Ripple Effect series came about while watching my children dropping balls into a kiddie pool and skipping stones across the Hudson River. Ripple effect plays with the idea of light and shadow, hinting of summer’s cool aqua ease. They are an exploration of water surface, tension, deep shadow, dancing light, and of childhood memories of time spent happily spacing out over water. Karen Gutfreund Bay Area artist and independent curator, believes artists have a unique role to play, to question, provoke and hold a mirror up to society. Nothing in life is black or white, but has many layers and complexities which the artist seeks to capture in her multilayered works both literally and figuratively with text, imagery and symbols. With this language and CRTL-ALT-DEL series Gutfreund examines the concept of creating ‘do-overs’, juxtaposing the digital realm manifesting in the personal. One swift keystroke — wipe everything out — reinvent oneself. Combining elements of paper collage, tape/ink transfer, deconstructed-found-photography, chance, and layering; Daniel Healey attempts to mimic the elements of painting. Working on canvas for the material associations of painting it evokes, and the history of painting it poses. The deconstructed layers of ink from consumer catalogues become the “paint” and line drawing assemblage. The paintings’ finished surfaces are layers of clear tape functioning as a substitute for high gloss varnish, a kind of “contemporary glaze.” Ephemeral by nature, the tape, the ink, the catalogues used by Healey in these works remain in a state of indeterminate fluctuation, indicative of modern material, physical changes associated with time and light and societal value placed on objects by humans. Through the lens of perception, fluctuating between the minuscule and the grandiose, Oakland based artist Michelle Mansour believes we find fear and wonder of the unknown, the invisible, and the uncontrollable. Based initially on an investigation of the interior world of the body where this wonder and fear, beauty and illness mingle in the same fluids and membranes, her work has become a broader reflection of where science and the metaphysical intersect and overlap. She has developed a language of marks and surfaces, initially referencing documentary images from microscopic photographs and biology texts Bay Area artist Rosalio Vargas approaches his work by creating space with an openness and free flowing of energy. Applying layers of paint, Vargas perceives his works as representing life experiences with each subsequent layer deepening the story. One could interpret these layers as portals in which the viewer may choose to peer into — or not — for deeper exploration of the work and themselves. Vargas’ paintings are a part of his past and the energy he has accumulated over time. We are all composed of energy whereby these paintings serve as a conduit to transfer this energy. |
