Exhibiting Artists
December 7, 2017 - January 13, 2018
Gallery Open: Thursday - Monday 1-5pm
Opening Reception: Friday December 8th, 6:00 - 8:30pm
Artist Panel Discussion: Friday, January 5th, 6:00pm

West Gallery: Looking Back - 30 yrs.

Pamela Stockamore

I believe that a work of art must stand or fall on it’s own merit. Regardless of whether the art is representational or abstract, it must connect with and engage the viewer on some level.
Writing about one’s art is possibly one of the most difficult things an artist may do. Yet, writing about, or discussing one’s art, is as much a part of the process as working in the studio.
 
I have used the same approach, process, and formal shape as the point of departure and common ground in my art for decades.
 
My approach to making art continues to explore the conceptual links between Eastern and Western philosophies and the delicate balance of opposites - entropy and order, intuition and reason, flux and permanence, and the intangible and the physical. These dualities seem fundamentally and mutually exclusive, yet they complement one another and permeate every aspect of our lives and world.
 
The process involves a centuries old method of grinding and combining pure mineral and earth pigments employing both traditional and contemporary means - using brushes, my hands, or whatever tool suits the need of the moment. While aspects of this process have intent and control, there is also randomness. Decisions can be made, but the results are not always linear or predictable. The wonderment of the process is that while there is immediacy in the working moment, there are also times of quiet observation. At some point each piece acquires a life and a voice of its own, which inevitably engages me in a growing dialogue that I cannot disregard.
 
From a formal standpoint, the square format, unlike the rectangle, makes no associative reference to landscape or portrait. The square simply “is”; an archetypal shape that is stable, static, and passive. From a compositional standpoint, the square is perhaps the most difficult shape to energize.
 
The paintings do not reflect a literal response to what has inspired me. Rather, they are the embedded sense-memory of colors, textures, materials, surfaces, and the ephemeral quality of light, which surrounds me on a daily basis. My paintings are an investigation into the effects of time and nature on all things, a visual remembrance of countless transitory realities.

East Gallery: Amphorae
​

Peter Busby

These collective pieces represent the realization of an idea I’ve carried with me for decades—an idea prompted by a visit to Karnak, a temple located in southern Egypt. The great roof of the Karnak temple was supported by numerous, colossal, columns that visitors are able to walk around and between.
 
With this show, I aim to emulate that memorable experience—that humbling feeling of existing among something so much greater than oneself. Much like my experience with the columns at Karnak, viewers walk among the Amphorae, rather than around a single piece. 
 
The individual forms, inspired by the ancient urns and vessels I encountered during my travels as a young adult, are defined by rolled steel rod wrapped around a wooden frame, so that the overall shape is implied, but not restrictive. And so, viewers become a part of the installation itself, both physically, as they weave their ways through the giant vessels, and mentally, as they allow their minds to imagine each form as a solid, voluminous structure.
 
While the Amphorae openly reference ancient vessels through their classical forms, the materials used, the scale, and the apparent non-functionality of the vessels thrust these works into the contemporary sphere, thus, provoking a dialog between classical and contemporary approaches to art, between idealized forms and process.
​

TDP Gallery: Connemara Paintings

Joseph Byrne

 Although always rooted in the act of observation, my paintings are fictional constructs that represent a long and complicated negotiation between what is out there in the world—the objects in a still life; the rocks, hills, or bodies of water in a landscape—and my subjective response to them. This most recent body of work is based on the landscape of the Roundstone Bog in the Connemara region of west Ireland. My fascination with this area is both personal—my maternal grandmother was born in a fishing village in this region—and conceptual. The geological history of the bog is fascinating, and the contemporary characteristics of this austere landscape present visual problems that intrigue and challenge me as a painter. As in all of my work, it is the relationship between perception, representation, and abstraction that holds my attention: how a field of rocks becomes an arrangement of color and physical marks on canvas or paper; how the painting that results resonates with a viewer’s own thoughts, experiences, and memories.

Kindly Sponsored by:

Grace and Djan Yagtug &
​ Victor and Marion Muschell