VIEW EXHIBIT
PHOTOS
BERTA
WALKER GALLERY OPENS SEASON WITH EXCITING EXHIBITION
"MULTI-TASKERS: Great Staff, Great
Artists"
May 27 June 19, 2005. Reception Friday, May 27, 7 9 pm
The Berta Walker Gallery is proud to launch its Sixteenth Season with a group show by the very talented staff of artists who keep the Gallery open. Following in the footsteps of Hans Hofmann (teacher), Matisse (lawyer), Gauguin (stockbroker), Oldenburg (Installation designer), and most artists everywhere, these nine accomplished artists support their art through their "day jobs" and the Berta Walker Gallery is the lucky recipient! The Gallery¹s exceptionally talented Staff represent a variety of media: photography, painting, sculpture, videography and writing. Included in the exhibition are: Doug Culhane (installations), Vincent Guadazno (gallery photographer), Eileen Kennedy (press releases), Liz McLean (video and art transportation), Ewa Nogiec (graphic design), Erna Partoll (sales), Sky Power (sales/administration), Will Sherwood (web design/graphics), Larry Smith (installation design).
DOUG CULHANE is a conceptual sculptor works with found objects, carved wood and marble. In his "Notes on Sculpture", Culhane describes his work as "a narrative embedded in stillness, at once a process of combustion and fossilization." Included in this exhibition will be a work that combines steel and wood creating a piece focusing on balance, functionality and the relationships between man-made and organic objects.
Photographer VINCENT GUADAZNO brings to this exhibition black and white photographs recording important history in Provincetown from the 60s forward, and classically composed color photographs catching time as it quickly moves beyond our reach such as the moment of grey/blue light moving to night, a snake startled in the grass, songbirds in flight. A Provincetown year-rounder, Gaudazno can be found anywhere something interesting is happening. He is the roving photographer for The Provincetown Banner and photos have also been reproduced in such publications as The Advocate, Provincetown Arts, Cape Cod Times, Cape Arts. Digital technology and the consequent ease of color "development" lured Guadazno from decades of developing his own black and white photographs to the world of color. Guadazno is often seen at Provincetown art openings with camera in hand. Now viewers have the chance to see what comes out of that camera.
EILEEN KENNEDY¹S mixed-media paintings have been inspired by scenes of Provincetown and Cuba where she has resided for several winters. Eileen is the first international painter to be invited to show at the Museo del Arts in Pinar del Rio, Cuba. Cuban art critic Martha Cantillo observed her intention is to recreate the interior¹ of objects and placewith subtle emotional tones and formintellectual and instinctive. She has elevated abstract figuration to an experimental mode, mysterious and novel." Her second solo exhibition in Havana is scheduled for December, 2005. Additionally, Kennedy is an accomplished singer, often heard performing in the Great Music Sundays at Five concerts at the UU Church in Provincetown.
Videographer LIZ McLEAN¹S video in this exhibition was directly inspired from her courier business, transporting fine art around the country. "I started the Artists¹ Archive Project to document working artists. This visual archive records the process of painters, sculptors, and musicians as they work in their studios." Included in the stills are cropped angles of artists¹ hands in the moment of creation, as well as gritty "snaps" of the bridges and tunnels (from the driver¹s perspective) that carry McLean¹s artistic cargo to its various destinations. McLean lives in Brooklyn and Provincetown and has shared excerpts of her video work with artists, galleries and universities. In addition, she recently made a presentation at Silvermine Artists Guild and completed three private commissions in New York City and Baltimore.
EWA NOGIEC, an immigrant from Poland, is a painter, conceptual artist, photographer and a graphic designer, living and working in Provincetown for over 20 years. Her soft, contemplative, and intriguing small oils on canvas are abstracted imagery of landscapes, water, sky, and people. Nogiec says: "I want my paintings to be like ice cream -- delicious! Irristible!" Some of Nogiec's recent conceptual art pieces include: Inspiration for the art installation of huge photos of Portuguese women by Norma Holt on Fisherman's Wharf; Harbor Lights Hope, with kayakers pulling thousands of lights in the water; I AM PROVINCETOWN exhibit at Pilgrim Monument & Provincetown Museum, "FaxArt" exhibition at Berta Walker Gallery several years ago involving artists from around the world. She is also the designer for the Town of Provincetown's logo.
ERNA PARTOLL¹S compact geometric and curvilinear "landscapes" have been described by art historian Dr. Emily Farnham as possessing "an unusual sense of monumental expression". In her latest work, 9" x 9" colored ink drawings on paper, Partoll explains she¹s introduced even "more air, more space" into her compositions of line and colors which can be read as brilliant color and musical improvisations. Starting with her recurrent circle as her "sustained tone", Partoll¹s abstract compositions expand and vibrate with portals, waves, architectural structures, simplified repeating symbols of rhythmic light and color. The small works remind one of the grand scale paintings achieved by Sonia and Robert Delaunay, with a playfulness likened to Paul Klee.
SKY POWER¹s "dreamscapes" make us look long and frequently at her highly original abstract /figuration landscape paintings, reveling in the expansive sky and turbulent weather so familiar to the plains and coastal regions. In her own words, "By dramatizing nature¹s horizon, my 'dreamscapes' convey the emotional weather of my experience." Power utilizes nature as her own personal vocabulary or "iconography" in a way that is simultaneously mysterious and familiar, storied and inventive. Art Historian Emma Ross, wrote"Power juxtaposes harmony with chaos, permanence with the ephemeral. She communicates the sanctity as well as the violence in nature."
WILL SHERWOOD is a photographer, musician and neon light artist. Retiring from the corporate world this month in order to focus on his music and photography, Sherwood has in his own words, "photographed landscapes and macro nature perspectives all my life." Over the past ten years, "I have evolved my work to exploring beauty in the human form what I now call nude abstractions. I was initially intrigued by combining the conceptual effects from infrared film with the combination of light and shadow, body shapes, and textures. My background as a musician, improviser, and composer has become more of a vital part of creating these images." Fifteen years ago, Sherwood showed with Walker at the Walker¹s Wonders Gallery creating a room of neon light sculpture.
LARRY SMITH, artist & writer, knows there is an art to displaying art, and wrote a book all about it. Smith was a professor of exhibition design, display, and exhibition graphics at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. He was the Technical Director of their galleries where he oversaw the construction, installation, and lighting of over one hundred FIT exhibitions over a span of fifteen years. His professional life also included a long stint in professional theatre as a stage manager and designer . Smith lives in Wellfleet and can be heard, from time to time, as a DJ on WOMR. Since retiring to the Cape, Larry has worked for many local theatres including WHAT, Payomet and the REP.
A reception to meet this special group of artists takes place on Friday, May 27, 7 - 9 pm.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATON PLEASE CONTACT THE GALLERY.
NEXT EXHIBITIONS: June 24 - July 17, 2005. Gilbert Franklin Memorial Sculpture Exhibition; Paul Resika, "Recent Pastels", plus the final weeks of Resika's "Creation Series" installation
