Opening Reception: Saturday, January 31, 5-8 p.m.
Artist Talk: Saturday, February 7, 3 p.m.
Transitions, Vicky Hoffman
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Vicky Hoffman, At a Crossroad, Mixed Media, 10 x 10"
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Is it possible to go forward in life without dragging the past into the future? This is a question that Vicky Hoffman explores in her upcoming exhibition. Transitions require balance and spontaneity; an inquiring state of mind; a positive reflection in the face of negativity and still hold a vision for the future. Transitions enable us to make fundamental changes to how we see the world and respond creatively to our new reality, good or bad.
Hoffman’s aim with this body of work is to explore and renew the unexpected and sometimes unwelcomed transitions. Her work weaves between discourse, environmental influences and emotions. She uses maps, grids and tactile materials to provide a slightly more intimate perspective. She applies mixed media and encaustic paints to create a veil of light and depth as well as transparency to achieve an abstract environment.
With her latest body of work, artist Joan Horsfall Young contemplates the qualities that render something pretty. “Although ‘pretty’ is an unnecessary accessory, it rests upon the underlying depth, wisdom and simplicity that supports it,” says Horsfall Young. Horsfall Young presents her viewers with motifs of elegant simplicity that call for a closer look. With her still life study Pretty Lady, Horsfall Young portrays a delicate Chinese statue with attention to history. “Empress Xiaochengren completed the monumental task of compiling the first dictionary of Chinese characters - 45,000 in all,” says Horsfall Young. “However, she is most remembered for being pretty, or enchanting - was it her laborious work that made her appearance so charming?” Using masterful buttery paint application, her works illustrate an immediacy of technique that is rooted in her plein air background. Subtle highlights and shifts in color convey tranquility, coaxing viewers to pause from life’s bustling chaos.
Hoffman’s aim with this body of work is to explore and renew the unexpected and sometimes unwelcomed transitions. Her work weaves between discourse, environmental influences and emotions. She uses maps, grids and tactile materials to provide a slightly more intimate perspective. She applies mixed media and encaustic paints to create a veil of light and depth as well as transparency to achieve an abstract environment.
Reality, Joan Wynn
In Reality, Joan Wynn features sculptures that are inspired by her own life and by universal experience. Distilling memories from her past, Wynn creates figures and symbols that reflect isolation and longing. Her sculptures also draw on her current life and future goals. Wynn’s studies in ethics are a stimulus for sculptures included in Reality that raise broad questions of human existence. These issues include the extent to which boundaries between people are inevitable and how fully we can and should move beyond them. Other works explore whether our lives can be guided by intentional trajectories. And still others reflect our need to create groups that privilege their members while excluding others. Most of Wynn’s work is welded from recycled steel that carries the scarring, patinas and wear from past use adding to the depth of her sculptures. |
| Joan Wynn, I Think, Welded steel, 22 x 9 x 6.5" |
Pretty Things, Joan Horsfall Young
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| Joan Horsfall Young, Pretty Lady, Oil on linen, 30 x 24" |
