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December Issue 2007
Elder Gallery in Charlotte, NC, Offers Artists from East & West Coasts
Elder Gallery in Charlotte, NC, will present the exhibit, Painters of New York and California, featuring works from both areas on view from Dec. 7 - 31, 2007.
New York has long been the hub for exceptional American art. Some critics now believe that California is offering a serious challenge for that position. Elder Gallery is presenting works by emerging, mid-career and established artists from each area.
New York artists featured in the exhibition include Cora Cohen, David Fratkin, Michael Paltin, Carl Plansky and Jill Stasium.
Abstract painter Cora Cohen is known for opulent paintings that draw on contemporary urban and philosophical sources. Their rich visuality invokes aspects of American modernism and European art informed. Cohen has been the recipient of the Pollock Krasner Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Award, a Gottlieb Foundation Award and a New York State Council in the Arts Award. Her work is included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Yale University, The Weatherspoon Art Museum, The Widener Library and the Swedish State Art Council.
David Fratkin's paintings are ornamented "skins" peeled up from plate glass. They are patterned organically or architecturally, as if tattooed, graffitied, or tiled. Combining painting with printmaking, computer - distorted patterns are carved into rubber blocks and pressed through a sheet of paint. Additional layers of glaze and medium create paintings in reverse. The resulting surfaces feel both delicately intimate and vertiginously distant. The distorted patterning transgresses the basic grid of the printing template, gradually giving way to a luminous shimmer.
New York's muted metropolitan landscape and its graphic subject matter have shaped Michael Palkin's work. These elements have led Palkin to his most recent collage "abstractism" wherein he uses cartoons, magazine ads, newspaper articles and paint to create a billboard-like effect in his paintings. His work contains hidden and unhidden positive messages which create a harmony and balance and are easily perceived by the viewer of his work.
When Carl Plansky moved to New York as a young artist 37 years ago he was able to meet, befriend, and learn from many of his heroes including Willem de Kooning and his wife Elaine, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell and Phillip Guston. Bordering on abstraction, Plansky's paintings evoke the innate tension between stability and movement. Applying paint with large brushes, rags, and a plasterer's trowel, Plansky uses brash, voluptuous strokes to build up his paint so that certain areas of his paintings are thickly coated while others are almost bare.
Since graduating with a BFA from Montserrat College of Art in 1992, Jill Stasium has rarely passed a day without painting. Stasium describes New York City as the most inspiring place she has ever been and draws tremendous energy from the people and from the streets of the city. Her 2007 paintings consist of printed fabric adhered to canvas and painted with oil paint. Her vibrant colors and exciting subject matter are reflective of her artistic spirit.
Elder Gallery has chosen artists Brett Amory, James Lee, Gage Opdenbrouw, David Skinner and Thomas Van Stein to represent California. The work of these artists is as varied as the terrain of the state in which they live.
Brett Amory and James Lee are recent graduates of the Academy of Art University of San Francisco where each were recognized as outstanding painters and awarded an exhibition for their work at the University's gallery.
Gage Opdenbrouw was born and raised in San Jose, CA, and has lived in San Francisco for ten years. In 2001, he received an award as "Best Emerging Artist, Painting", from the Academy of Art College, at the time the largest school of art & design in the nation. Opdenbrouw was an Artist-In-Residence at the Vermont Studio Center in Dec. of 2005.
Thomas Van Stein has involved himself in over 160 exhibitions of his paintings and has won numerous awards in various Southern California and national juried art exhibitions. He was awarded Best of Show in the 1997 National Juried Arts Competition at the Abend Gallery, in Denver, CO, juried by renowned artist, Quang Ho. Van Stein graduated with distinction from Cal State University, Northridge earning a Master of Arts Degree and was chosen as the Fall, 1998 recipient of the prestigious Hans Burkhardt Foundation Scholarship.
David Skinner's contemporary images of the California and Blue Ridge landscapes are derived from his deep respect for the legacy of the California Plein Air painters and their noble portrayals of light and terrain. He boldly defines his personal style within the genre by pushing the boundaries of color and composition, drawing upon the integrated traditions of the Bay Area Figurative and Abstract Expressionist movements. His work showcases his affinity for the light, space, and radiance of the landscape, his style signifying an integral understanding of the New York and San Francisco schools of Rothko and Diebenkorn.
For further information check our NC Commercial
Gallery listings, call the gallery at 704/370-6337 or visit (www.elderart.com).
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