On Friday, September 13, kick off your weekend with an evening of art in the Central West End.
Three of our world-class art galleries on McPherson are hosting Opening Receptions from 5-8 p.m. We encourage you to make a stop at all three during this special “Gallery Night” in the CWE. There will also be street performers and live music at the corner of McPherson and Euclid, setting the ambiance for a wonderful evening in the neighborhood.
Duane Reed Gallery
The gallery is pleased to present new work by multimedia artists: Rebecca Hutchinson, Sun Smith-Foret and Ethan Meyer as part of Surface Design Association’s Biennial Conference “Beyond the Surface.”
Rebecca Hutchinson – “Using diverse processes, my interest is in quality of craft, connections, structure, and conceptually to all physical parts to the whole. I build site-responsive sculptural works made from clay and recycled materials, like old clothing or industrial surplus. I hand build, slip trail, dip, layer, cut and construct with the surplus and handmade materials.”
Sun Smith-Foret – “…this work is from self-taught traditional textile techniques begun in childhood and pursued throughout my domestic life. Knotting is a recent acquisition in my skill set and came from direct observation of the work of Jane Sauer, a former studio mate and decades-long friend and colleague. I have studied non-Western art forms, especially Survival Arts of the Pyramid Lake Paiutes by Margaret M. Wheat, and basketry of American and Canadian native tribes, global contemporary basketry, and the earth-focused spiritual aesthetic of Australian aboriginal artists. Vernacular African architecture also informs the work, as do repetitive rhythmic drumming and dance.”
Ethan Meyer – “My interest in fiber began in childhood. Growing up in a rural environment, I was always around growing things; studying spider webs, climbing on and swinging from vines, foraging for morels, picking wild flowers, etc. These experiences became the foundation for my aesthetic interests, and at every opportunity, I would get into my mother’s sewing kit or yarn, scrounge for wood scraps from my father’s workshop, and build crude sculpture. After spending much time working primarily in painting, I have returned to these sculptures and their roots in my love for nature and all growing things.”
Houska Gallery
Houska Gallery is pleased to present two new exhibitions, both opening on September 13.
Cory Sellers’ work deals primarily with the investigation of space. He’s greatly interested in pictorial drama and illusionism within that space, while also pushing the formal qualities of his medium. Certain features get manipulated or exaggerated, lending to a feeling of solitude and adding to the mystery of his compositions.
Caleb Gebel’s imagery is culled from past experiences and opinionated daydreams that are filtered through an optical assemblage of video games, cartoons, comedic horror, and thrash metal to create an abstract agnostic narrative. His paintings search for an illusive allegory that evokes meaning through a process of cultivating their own language while simultaneously deciphering it. This exhibition runs concurrently with Cory Sellers’ exhibition in the main gallery.
Philip Slein Gallery
Philip Slein Gallery is pleased to present the Opening Reception of Stars, a group exhibition featuring five different artists.
Alison Hall Giotto’s Arena Chapel with its vaulted ceiling of stars has been the inspiration for Alison Hall’s work for many years. Using the same renaissance techniques that Giotto employed in his frescos, Alison’s deep blue panels with hints of graphite mark her heavenly grids, her panels shimmering in monochromatic depth.
Warren Isensee Warren Isensee’s hard edged constructions employ the grid as well as utilizing bright bold marks, exactly executed, inviting the viewer to find fresh interpretations of the manner in which we perceive stars. Unlike the other artists, his stars exist out of the sky, not within it – yet the are of the spirit of the sky, as truly as the rest.
Douglas Melini Douglas Melini’s remarkable collages piece together mottled shapes and tones of paint allowing his stars to rest upon or peek through his permutations of blue. His is a unique and personal space; those who spend time with these works will be justly rewarded.
Carl Ostendarp Carl Ostendarp’s work, as that of Alison Hall, was inspired by a specific moment in art history. Virgo is one of six paintings Carl made of water sign constellations, the paintings’ sizes are exactly those of six 1968 works by Joan Miro, Letters and Numbers Attracted by a Spark, the swirling motif of which is perhaps as reminiscent of the heavens as is Carl’s reconsideration.
Barbara Takenaga Barbara Takenaga reconfigures space, our space, into fresh environments – an entire cosmos can be contained as small as a sheet of paper. And although her paintings are worlds of their own they somehow reach out and become ours as well.
Together, these five different artists present five contemporary interpretations of our heavens, constellations, and the stars.