Press Release
- Exhibition: ALTERED LANDSCAPES
- Showing: May 18th 2017 - June 24th 2017
SARAH WINKLER
Sarah Winkler is fascinated by the environmental factors that shape the natural world and seek to imitate their destructive and constructive qualities in an artistic technique. She translates her experiences walking into landscapes and the subsequent geology research of these locations into small collages constructed from papers of magnified organic textures which she designs and prints. The collages are the working sketches from which she scales up and paints the finished pieces in acrylic on wood panel. The materials she uses are mixed with natural minerals such as marble, mica and iron oxide, cementing the narrative connection of the works to their subject. This year, she has been influenced by the gilded radiance of 13th Century altarpiece paintings from Florence and Venice. Their multi-panel storytelling format and use of rare pigments and gold leaf to create iconic imagery made her consider how surrounding landscapes out West are a sacred place of worship of a different nature.
YIANNI MELLIOS
Unlike many other artists self-taught Greek artist Yianni Mellios started working out of his living room. His inspiration has been the Mediterranean landscape of his homeland that is characterized by tones of lush earth colors and brilliant blues. As a paragliding pilot, he has captured images of flying over Greece’s dry mountains, hills and unforgettable stretches of beach coasts in the summer. In addition, the earth and its living creatures are a favorite subject. Yianni frequently applies paint in thick layers and then makes cuts into it to produce paradoxical images in an existential style, whether they depict animals or abstracts. One of his favorite methods is taking his aluminum skimmer and pulling translucent color across the surface, varying the pressure slightly as he moves along the panel. His techniques are constantly evolving and changing, as are the world and its inhabitants.
ROBIN AULT
A licensed architect, Ault has always considered himself an artist and has used painting and sketching as part of the design process. Inspired by the writings and work of Robert Motherwell, Cy Twombly and Robert Rauschenberg, Ault began devoting more time topainting in 1999. Since then, he has won awards with the Art Students League in Denver and the Curtis Arts and Humanities Center in Greenwood Village, received a public art commission from the City of Denver and shows regularly at Space Gallery in the Santa Fe Arts District in Denver. Named one of ENR’s ‘Top 20 under 40’ in 2012, Robin Ault is a visiting critic to the University of Colorado, College of Architecture and Planning.
“Painting quickly is a calculated act to stimulate the imagination. The object is knowing when the painting is done: when I’ve gone far enough. Sometimes I catch myself at just the right moment, or I walk away for a minute and realize it’s complete. Sometimes, after going too far, I wipe the surface clean and with a few strokes, suddenly there it is: a familiar but unanticipated presence that didn’t desert me after all.”-Robin Ault
LEOPOLDO CUSPINERA
For more than twenty-five years Leopoldo Cuspinera has been focused on the dynamic relationship between landscape and memory as a painter and academic. He says he does not want to lose his memory, so he uses many objects to trigger it. He takes what is already there, in different places, and transforms it. He has memories collected while on intense journeys, starting in his home country of Mexico; later in Europe, and currently in the United States. In this way, he gives the landscape back what it has given and what he needs to remember .
His paintings function as memorial artifacts, in some way they show veiled and unveiled segments of reality or aspects of life: fascinating, mysterious, complex and sometimes also dramatic. These segments permit him to observe details which otherwise would be lost in the immensity.
STEPHEN SHACHTMAN
Stephen Shachtman is constantly seeking to find something new and stimulating in either a physical or cerebral sense. The sculptures he creates circulate with aesthetics in contemporary forms with influences and inspiration from, science, architecture, and techniques. These inspirations inform him to create series’ with specific dialogue due to process‘s, dimensions, material usage, and overall presence.
Depending on the sculptural forms and concepts, a few primary materials employed are; copper, glass, and steel. Some of the elements in Stephen’s work range from; hammered surfaces which have an organic aesthetic while overall forms tend to have clean lines with a minimalistic approach yet are monolithic in presence. Some aesthetics are large-scale filigree in the metal that allows a viewer to see through the organic forms, while similar manipulation of glass elements are stacked to create positive and negative spaces. All pieces are affected by the orientation of light to unveil the personality of the sculptures, which create a 4th dimension of shadows and reflection as they emerge to produce an element of surprise.
