Exhibitions

• May 27 - June 27, 2011

Gallery Walk Date: Saturday, May 28th 5-8pm

• Eloquent Flower XV

In it's 15th year, the group exhibition “Eloquent Flower ” is a celebration of Spring by our contemporary artists.  An extrinsic dialog emerges between each artist and their personal depiction of flowers.  These artists present us with unique perspectives of the traditional symbol of spring and countless other concepts, like beauty, sensuality, and vitality.  Each of these artists evokes responses and emotions through their work. Chris Reilly and Michelle Haglund's spiritual and organic encaustic paintings play off the ethereal reality of Jack Spencer's photographs. The subtlety and intimacy of Kenna Moser's beeswax, vintage envelope, and collage pieces counter the vibrant colors of Michael Gregory's tulips. David deVillier's paintings offer whimsical flowers amid physicological landscapes relating to Lynda Lowe's scientific and poetic paintings. The ebb and flow of Allison Stewart's loose flowers and Betsy Eby’s encaustics balance Rene Rickabaugh's precisely detailed epoxy, resin, and mixed media flowers. All of these paintings dance together in celebration of spring.

Morgan Brig • Betsy Eby • Michelle Haglund • David deVillier

Michael Gregory • Hung Liu • Lynda Lowe • Kenna Moser

Carolyn Olbum • Christopher Reilly • Rene Rickabaugh

Jack Spencer • Allison Stewart

• Laura McPhee

Laura McPhee's exhibition will offer new works from in and around the Sawtooth National Forest area. This newest body of work is a continuation of her internationally successful "Guardians of Solitude" and "River of No Return" Series. McPhee has photographed most recently, in the woods of Idaho, New York City, and Kolkata, India. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Rhode Island School of Design. Her work, which ranges from portrait to landscape to still life, is widely exhibited nationally and internationally. She is a professor at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Laura McPhee • Summer (Late Afternoon) • Photography • 49" x 62" F

These photographs concern ideas about landscape in America and our values and beliefs about our relationship to the natural world.  the nature/culture dilemma is endlessly complex, and the photographs describe this kaleidoscopic, fragmented, and contested relationship.  Made in central Idaho, one of North American's emptiest places, the images ask how we can deinfe our relationship to time, to place, to land use, and to mortality.  The images inquire about many strands of history -- miners following explorers, ranchers coming to feed the miners and so forth.  They question our policies with regard to fire and seek to show the beauty and renewal in a landscape widely considered "ruined".  All of these relationships to the land and among its inhabitants, human and animal, raise queries about our notion of a utopian American landscape, one based on an ever-altering vision of past and future. Working with an 8 x 10 view camera, I contemplate the consequences, unintended or not, of the many ways we have written and rewritten our evolving ingeuity across the land over two short centuries. How we pay attention to place and to the question of our place in nature is what I strive to explore.

• Reinventing the Landscape

James Cook • Ted Waddell

Victoria Adams • Michael Gregory

The texture and tactility of James Cook and Ted Waddell's landscapes bring the vibrancy of the Northwest alive.  Using paint to create rich surfaces and capture the unique light of the West, these two painters move paint in luscious ways.  One can sense the wind in the air by the ripples of water in Cook's Silver Creek paintings.

The fresh damp smell of pastures in Waddell's depiction of Herefords and horses emanate from his canvases.

From the abstract to the referential, Victoria Adams' oil paintings are ethereal with cloud formations setting the tone for the peaceful landscape below.  Her vistas and skies are fictional, made up from imagination and coalescing in an unplanned way during the painting process.   Similarly, Michael Gregory has no particular place in mind, rather a set of constructs that he assembles, creating a place that no one has been.  Highlighted with a vast horizon and distant hills, Michael's color fields inspire from afar, but invite you in for a closer look.

• March 7 - April 10, 2011

Gallery Walk Date: Friday, March 11th 5-8pm

Artist Chat: Saturday, March 12th 10am

• Kris Cox
• Constructed Paintings
  

Gail Severn Gallery presents the newest work of Kris Cox whose meticulously layered and finely sculpted surfaces on panel, provide a juxtaposition of calculated references mixed with metaphor and color.  These conceptually based sculptural paintings are explorations of the symbolic notion of time.  The images are produced with investigations of the potency of materials such as putty and glazes on underlying structures, grids, and wood.  The highly worked surfaces are constructed without signs of the artist's immediate bodily gesture.  The subtle play between the polished, lush, top layers and the exposure of deep, underlying patterns are made up by traces of the artist's decisions, the process of adding and subtracting, which are recorded in the fields of the finished paintings.

Nicolas Africano • Linda Christensen       David deVillier • Jonathon Hexner              Rod Kagan • Margaret Keelan                  Judith Kindler • Deborah Oropallo

Gail Severn Gallery is happy to present, "The Figure," a group exhibition of eight unique artists' personal interpretations of the human form through their individual styles of painting and sculpture.

New to the gallery are Linda Christensen's colorful paintings that bridge abstraction with realism and the human form.

Nicolas Africano's one-of-a-kind cast glass sculptures remind us of classical sculpture with a purity and timelessness.

David deVillier paints women who tend to appear in magical places.

Jonathon Hexner uses dynamite fuse and gunpowder to draw images of children and friends around his rural studio in Maine.

Rod Kagan's sculpted bronze iconic totems remind us of ancient cultures.

Margaret Keelan presents intricate clay figures that are reminiscent of historical woodcarvings.

Judith Kindler uses photography, wax, text and glazes to create her stories.

Deborah Oropollo visits the American west with digitally manipulated and painted images that deal with gender, sex, and power.

• February 1st - March 1st, 2011
• Michael Gregory

Where the Rivers Change Direction

Gallery Walk Date: Friday, February 18th 5-8pm

Artist Chat: Saturday, February 19th 10am

"America has always been an idea, a construct of our imagination and our imagination has outdistanced even its vast boundaries and empty places.  Our pastoral yearnings are far from the reality of an unforgiving landscape and the hard life on the range.  The West is littered with buildings that are reminders of this struggle.

"Our American middle and our Great Plains have provided us a rich metaphor for a discussion of our hopes, aspirations and failures.  They are the subject of literature; poetry and song - part of our American common language.  These buildings have a particular resonance for us now as their history and their builder's struggles are being reenacted during our current economic woes.  'Past is prologue.'

"For a number of years now I have taken a series of road trips throughout the Midwest and West.  These paintings are visual composites of these trips, re-imagined and re-constructed in the studio.

"These paintings are an attempt to create a notion of a 'true west.'  We are reminded, by these structures in the vast landscape, of our human frailty in the face of time and the elements.  They are a memento mori.

"These paintings by their conception and resolution are fictive places, but places we are from and hope to return.  I would like to evoke in the viewer an experience of America's vast reservoir of space, distance, solitude, loneliness and yes, beauty."

-Michael Gregory

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• November 17 - December 17
• Gallery Walk:  Friday, November 26, 2010   •   5 P.M to 8 P.M

Cigar Box Paintings and Small Works

Ed Musante
Finch
Mixed Media • 7 1/2" x 12" x 2"

• December 20 - February 1
• Gallery Walk
• December 29, 2010   •   5 P.M to 8 P.M

ABOUT MARCIA MYERS

Marcia Myers
Tempio di Iside MMVIII-X
Fresco on Linen • 75" x 46"

David deVillier
The Oh! Tree
Oil on Steel Panel • 24" x 48"

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• September 8 - November 12
• Gallery Walk: September 8, 2010 • 5 P.M to 8 P.M

GROUP CONTEMPORARY

Victoria Adams, James Cook, Laura McPhee, Theodore Waddell

Cigar Box Paintings and Small Works

Jun Kaneko

Born and raised in Japan, Jun Kaneko moved to the United States to study ceramics. His painting background is evident in his work, where his monolithic ceramic “dangos” (the Japanese word for dumpling) become three-dimensional canvases. Working primarily with graphic, yet painterly, lines and dots, his rhythmic designs are analogous with the Japanese Shinto concept of the “Ma”.

Constructing pieces that weigh, as much as 1,000 lbs, Kaneko’s simplified forms and control of the material is unmatched. After construction, his clay work generally takes four months of drying time and up to a 35-day firing process. He has recently added bronze to his repertoire –Kaneko has built bronze heads in various sizes similar to his monumental heads that lined Park Avenue in New York City in 2008. The Gail Severn Gallery is pleased to include bronze heads, large and small-scale ‘dangos’, and paintings in this exhibition.

Peter Voulkos, an influential artist in his own right, described Kaneko’s work: “His accomplishments are unrivaled in the field of ceramic art. His technical achievements alone have redefined the possibilities the medium has to offer.” He then goes on to say, “Kaneko’s ceramic works are an amazing synthesis of painting and sculpture. His works are enigmatic and elusive, simultaneously restrained and powerful, Eastern and Western, static and alive, intellectual and playful, technical and innovative”

Kaneko’s exhibition history spans over 40 years. He is included in public collections such as the De Young Museum, Detroit Institute of Art, Fine Art Museum of San Francisco, Oakland Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery, and Japan’s Wakayama Museum of Modern Art.

Hung Liu has been painting in America since 1984, but Chinese history has always been the essence of her work.

Hung grew up in Beijing during the “Mao Years” which included the controversial Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. After graduating from high school in 1968, two years after Mao Tse-Tung declared the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, she was sent to the countryside where she worked with peasants seven days a week in the rice and wheat fields, over a four-year period. During this time she photographed and drew portraits of local farmers and their families. This was just the beginning of her development as a young artist in China.

Hung Liu’s extraordinary biography infuses her work with a unique richness; her paintings are steeped in Chinese culture, contemporary and ancient. While she has a foot in both cultures--China and the United States--her work is born of a traditional Chinese art education. She fuses images from 7th Century Tang tomb mural paintings of princes and princesses with Western imagery, surrounded by her signature circles of color and abstract patterns.

Liu plumbs the depths of her life experiences as well as all that interests her about history, gender, identity, Chinese politics and culture. Her paintings and prints make use of photographs, both hers and anonymous Chinese historical photographs, particularly those of women, children, refugees, and soldiers as subject matter. Liu's paintings - often drippy and washed with layers of linseed oil - can be seen as critiques of the rigid academicism of the Chinese Socialist Realist style in which she was trained, as well as metaphors for the loss of historical memory. One of the first Chinese artists to study in the United States, Liu's works represents the ongoing tension between emigration and immigration. Liu has received numerous awards, including two painting fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and her work is represented in the permanent collections of major museums and private collections throughout the United States and Asia.

• August 6, 2010
  
  
  Jan Aronson
  "Water"
  
  
  
  Nationally acclaimed for her paintings that capture nature and abstraction concurrently, Aronson continues to paint stylized studies of leaves, rocks, and water in both oil on canvas, graphite and watercolor on paper. Vital and lucid colors painted with quick, short strokes of paint draw you deep into the grooves of every rock and the crest of every water ripple. Aronson’s paintings are arresting not only for the rich use of color and perspective but for their personal sense of psychological and formal considerations. Her images are alive, moving and suspended in time.

Gail Severn Gallery is participating in the Chicago Art Fair and would love to see you!  We have a select number of complimentary tickets to give to our esteemed clients, and would love to extend those to you as a thank you for your patronage over the years.  Please email us if you are interested in attending.

We will be exhibiting the following artists

ELOQUENT FLOWER XIV May 21st – June 28th

These exhibitions are always much-anticipated at the Gail Severn Gallery. The range of media and interpretations of flowers and landscapes from both contemporary and abstract work draws large audiences. The newest artist to join these annual exhibitions is Inez Storer, who will present work on paper that incorporates images of flowers in her story telling. Known for her rich narratives, the gallery is thrilled to offer work by this well known California artist.

Valerie Hammond’s delicate paper pieces speak of mystery and a sense of enchantment grounded by human connectivity. Hammond explores the mysteries surrounding Emily Dickinson’s life including Dickinson’s herbarium pages. Rene Rickabaugh, Morgan Brig and Gary Nisbet create intimate and fanciful objects – Rickabaugh’s are obsessively detailed paintings of imaginary flowers, Nisbet’s are paper collages, while Brig’s are copper enamel paintings on sculpture which draw the viewer in to read and study intimate, often animated, shapes. Photo real images by painter Michael Gregory offer the viewer a rigorously observed, sensually rendered series of single tulips. Christopher Reilly and Michelle Haglund’s gestures in oil and wax are loose and fluid, depicting close ups of nature, often inspired by their own back yard. Painting confident notes across the paper, Allison Stewart packs the energy of an abstract expressionist in her mixed media paintings. Lynda Lowe's still life's offer the viewer an open vista into the artist’s complex imagination. Internationally known Tony Berlant, Carolyn Brady and Joseph Raffael have distinctly recognizable styles. Berlant’s paintings/ sculptures are made of pieces of cut and nailed tin. Carolyn Brady and Joseph Raphael’s rich and fluid watercolors of flowers prove why they have built such international notoriety.

SURFACE VII

Squeak Carnwath · Raphaëlle Goethals · Jun Kaneko · Jonathon Hexner · Gary Komarin Cole Morgan · Gwynn Murrill · David Secrest · Julie Speidel

These current and contemporary artists use various materials and surfaces to create unique and very contemporary works. Internationally exhibited artist Nicolas Africano casts rich, beautiful portraits of women in life like forms of various sizes. Squeak Carnwath offers a new suite of prints that have the touch and feel of her oils. Raphaëlle Goethals works in encaustic, painting quiet and peaceful paintings with rich depth. Jun Kaneko’s painting and sculpture present surfaces that have a rich expressionistic quality, as do Gary Komarin and Cole Morgan. Gwynn Murrill, David Secrest and Julie Speidel who each sculpt in bronze, steel and stone have found large collector bases and national reputations.

SENSE OF PLACE XV

The artists included in this exhibition approach the landscape with a unique vision and a sense of the land and waters of the world that they inhabit or visit regularly. Victoria Adams’ paintings appear recognizable to many, but are a compilation of places and moments in time. Divit Cardoza, Tony Foster, Sheila Gardner and George Harkins use watercolors as their medium of choice – sometimes painting on site and sometime in their studios. James Cook visits Idaho, as does Mario Reis, but while Cook uses thick oil to create his rugged images, Reis uses the rivers and streams of Idaho to paint their own portraits'. Ted Waddell and Bruce Park move back and forth between Idaho and Montana capturing the rural images of both. McPhee presents her large scale color photographs of the regenerative landscape after forest fires.

Many of the artists in these group exhibitions have solo exhibitions at the gallery over the next 12 months.

• December 23rd - February 1st
• "Animal - Form and Spirit"

Gallery Walk Date - December 30th, 2009 5 P.M to 8 P.M

"Animal - Form and Spirit," explores animals and nature. Each artist depicts animals in different ways but they all deliver the same message, the sense of togetherness and the importance of their presence. Featuring Jane Rosen, Ed Musante, Brad Rude, Robert McCauley, Gwynn Murrill, Nicole Charbonnet and Jonathon Hexner. 

Nicole Charbonnet, "Deer," 78" x 94"

• December 23rd - February 1st
• "The Artist Eye"

Gallery Walk Date - December 30th, 2009 5 P.M to 8 P.M

The "Artist Eye" is a contemporary show featuring work by artists working in all mediums. They explore surface, texture and depth while displaying their various mixed media techniques. Some have simple lines while others make bold statements. This show features Nicolas Africano, Lynda Lowe, Raphaelle Goethals, Squeak Carnwath, Hung Liu, Cole Morgan, Gary Komarin, Jun Kaneko, Judith Kinder, Christopher Reilly, Woods Davy, Julie Speidel, Bean Finneran, Andrew Harper and Mario Reis.

Nicolas Africano, "Untitled," 17 1/4" x 14 1/2" x 11 1/2"

• December 23rd - February 1st
• Cole Morgan

Gallery Walk Date - December 30th, 2009 5 P.M to 8 P.M

American-born, Belgian artist, Cole Morgan creates detailed mixed media paintings. His work is a process of layering and combining mediums. He combines his own spontaneous visual-language of bright colors, mysterious handwritten scrawl, scratches, glimpses of underpainting, and strange characters with formalist, abstract compositions. His paintings are full of objects that appear 3-dimensional. The vibrant colors jump off the canvas and create a puzzle like grid full of mystery. The mixed media surfaces entice the viewer to explore and unravel the canvas.

Cole Morgan, "Square Sail," Mixed Media on canvas, 40" x 40"

• December 23rd - February 1st
• David deVillier

Gallery Walk Date - December 30th, 2009 5 P.M to 8 P.M

David deVillier’s colorful narrative paintings, framed in bold steel frames welded by the artist, are filled with whimsical images of women, birds and musical influences. In his paintings you will find unassuming combinations of characters and props that present the opening act to a story. deVillier’s paintings are full of wit providing humor with an underlying emotionally message. The drama of each piece will unfold as you delve into the depth of the painting.

• February 1st - February 26th
• Betsy Eby

"The Red Paintings"

Gallery Walk Date - February 12, 2010 5 P.M to 8 P.M

This will be the first solo exhibition at the Gail Severn Gallery for nationally recognized painter Betsy Eby.

Betsy’s fluid encaustic pieces draw the viewer in for a closer look with their delicate movement and light.

Eby states -
“I began working with wax long ago because it seemed to be the only material manipulatable toward achieving atmospheric and ephemeral depth.  I developed my own material process to record the Northwest's oyster light. Through viscous, transparent layers of fused wax and varnish, velaturas and layered depths attempt to represent the silver sfumato so endemic to the Pacific sky and sea. Calligraphic gestures suggest winged flight patterns, stark, winter brambles, tidal currents, or inky, moist blossoms, as well as musical rhythms impressed upon me by my lifelong practice of classical piano playing.

I try and walk the line between abstraction and representation in my work, in the same way the Chinese painters recorded expressions. Through recording mimetically, I hope to activate an interactive experience with a sense beyond the senses, or as Kuo Si said "...the deep peace that [the artists'] paintbrush will convey by using the visible to suggest the invisible."”

• August 31st - October 2nd
• Tony Foster
• "Secret Sites - Watercoulor Diaries by Tony Foster"

Tony Foster has a lifestyle that many would admire. He travels to the world’s remotest wildernesses, sets up easels and works on site. In order to achieve his Watercolor Diaries, he hikes into untouched wilderness, camps and explores the area. His canvases range in size, some up to 6ft long. Like a true explorer, Tony collects treasures from each journey and places them in souvenir boxes which then become an integral part of each piece. The paintings are stunning evidence of what he encounters on his journey - not just the landscape, but flora and fauna, notes, souvenirs and anecdotes.

• November 20th - December 21st
• "The Artist Eye"

Gallery Walk Date - November 27th, 2009 5 P.M to 8 P.M

The "Artist Eye" is a contemporary show featuring work by artists working in all mediums. They explore surface, texture and depth while displaying their various mixed media techniques. Some have simple lines while others make bold statements. This show features Kris Cox, Raphaelle Goethals, Squeak Carnwath, Hung Liu, Cole Morgan, Gary Komarin, Jun Kaneko, Valerie Hammond, Judith Kinder, Deborah Oropallo, Christopher Reilly, Woods Davy, Julie Speidel, Bean Finneran, Andrew Harper and Mario Reis.

Andy Harper, "Moving South," 17 1/4" x 23 1/4" F

• November 20th - December 21st
• "Animal - Form and Spirit"

Gallery Walk Date - November 27th, 2009 5 P.M to 8 P.M

"Animal - Form and Spirit," explores animals and nature. Each artist depicts animals in different ways but they all deliver the same message, the sense of togetherness and the importance of their presence. From Ed Musante’s painted cigar boxes, to Brad Rude’s whimsical bronze sculptures and Robert McCauley’s dramatic oil paintings.

Ed Musante, "Flycatcher/Sunkist," 7" x 6" x 2"

• October 5th - November 16th
• Ed Musante and Jane Rosen

Jane Rosen, "Classy and Raven," Hand painted etching with lithography, 43" x 30"

• October 5th - November 16th
• Sheila Gardner and Tony Foster
• "Inspired by Idaho"

Work by Watercolorist Tony Foster and Sheila Gardner.

Tony Foster has a lifestyle that many would admire. He travels to the world’s remotest wildernesses, sets up easels and works on site. In order to achieve his Watercolor Diaries, he hikes into untouched wilderness, camps and explores the area. His canvases range in size, some up to 6ft long. Like a true explorer, Tony collects treasures from each journey and places them in souvenir boxes which then become an integral part of each piece.

Once a longtime resident of the Sun Valley area, Sheila Gardner continues to paint well-observed landscapes, rich with color and textured light. Despite a long, highly acclaimed career of observing nature, Gardner has not settled and continues to progress and develop as an artist. The artist is fascinated with how light and color forms the world around us; furthermore, Gardner is showing us how the appearance of the world transforms with constantly changing light.

• October 5th - November 16th
• Christopher Reilly and Michelle Haglund
• "Abundance"

Chris Reilly and Michelle Haglund’s newest series portray the cycle of life. Their work depicts natural transformation and evolution. The work often includes seeds, foliage and blossoms referencing the cycles of life depicting growth, life and death. The work is intriguing, yet quiet and peaceful. The pieces exude a sense of mystery creating a thought and image to meditate on or with.

Creating this work by adding and removing layers of encaustic, the surfaces begin on panel and then pastels, watercolor and molten wax to build their incredible paintings. The tactile surfaces are sensual and seductive.

Michelle Haglund, "Above the Pond," 25 1/2" x 49 1/2"

• October 5th - November 16th
• James Cook
• "Silver Creek"

James Cook paints because he loves it. The smell, texture, and feel of the brush wet from the paint stimulate his hand. His work is impressionistic, however, he provides the viewer with a recognizable reality. His impasto technique creates a surface full of movement and texture. The paintings jump of the canvas, the colors bringing them to life. The details of the image can examined closely and the scene grows increasingly cohesive from afar.

This body of work focuses on “Silver Creekand our surrounding mountains.” He spends time in our area painting the landscape and documenting the incredible weather shifts.

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James Cook, "Silver Creek August #1," 42" x 70" UF

• November 20th - December 21st
• "A Sense of Place XIV"

Gallery Walk Date - November 27th, 2009 5 P.M to 8 P.M

This group landscape show explores oils, watercolors and photography. These artists all define a space and bring the viewer to their destination. Featuring James Cook, Tony Foster, Laura McPhee, Theodore Waddell, Michael Gregory and Sheila Gardner. We will also be showing sculpture by David Secrest, Gwynn Murrill, Will Robinson and Mark Stasz. All these artists use natural materials creating very organic work suitable for indoors or outside.

Gwynn Murrill, "Mabel 4/9," 14" x 12 3/4 x 7" F

• February 1st - February 26th 
• Jonathon Hexner

Gallery Walk Date - February 12th, 2010, 5 P.M to 8 P.M

This will be the first solo exhibition at the Gail Severn Gallery for award winning artist Jonathon Hexner.   

 “Jonathon Hexner’s works on paper are conceptually based in chemical
 Photography in that they are reactions on paper. When the reaction is
finished, the drawing is done. The medium that Hexner chooses is specific to
the location where he makes the works—The F.U.S.E. and P.O.W.D.E.R. drawings are made in Maine, the R.U.S.T. drawings are created in Puerto Rico, the A.L.G.A.E. drawings are made on the Big Island of Hawaii, the R.O.P.E drawings are fabricated in Los Angeles, etc. The location where Hexner creates each work is specific to a particular concept, usually with links to personal history, art history, popular culture and notions of how events are witnessed, documented and remembered. Hexner works on several bodies of work simultaneously, hop-scotching the globe, working on different drawings, sculptures, photographs and films. Most bodies of work are ongoing and take years to finish.”

• March 1st - April 23rd
• Judith Kindler

"Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful"

Gallery Walk Date - March 5th, 2010, 5 P.M to 8 P.M

We have all looked at art, at popular icons or concepts of beauty and have questioned why and how we have come to select certain subjects as admirable, beautiful, desirable, etc. Judith Kindler takes on this question in this body of photography “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful.”

Playing with and referencing our culture, art and its icons, the artist brings new meanings through humor, re-contextualizing, and satire. All photographed in the artist’s studio in Seattle, she plays with her models, back-dropping them with the starkness of an empty or nearly empty space or contrasting with sets that are more elaborate. Yet all maintain a simple focus and composition, along with the psychological overtones of the imagery typical of the artist’s oeuvre.

This oeuvre was described in 2004 by Bellevue Arts Museum ’s Curator, Stefano Catalani, in “Defining Truth/ Judith Kindler ” as follows: “The composition of the photographs is minimal, reduced to standing girls and young women in white delicate clothing, often against an indefinite and blurred background. The spatial perception here is blind, almost dimensionless, except for the human figure. The white atmosphere is rarified, suspended, though charged at times with symptoms of tension: A sudden gesture of embrace, eye contact with the viewer, lifted hands, or eyes cast down. . . Judith Kindler builds up the narrative and iconographic space . . . a repertoire of symbols and seminal ideas projected out for readers able to decipher.”

Kindler explains: “Different than my photo-based encaustic work where I create layers of narrative through the addition of encaustic, oils and inscribing, in this purely photographic work, I create the narrative, through a combination of props at play with the subjects. Through a feeling of documentation in the photographic approach, I try to create a sense of gravity to the situations I place the figure/s in, even when there is humor at play.

The photographs are printed with Ultrachrome K3 Archival Pigmented Inks on Ultra- Premium Luster Photo Paper. The artist’s signature/mark and edition number appear in the lower right hand corner of the image. 

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful - 1007, Laminated Photograph, 60" x 40" UF

• March 1st - April 23rd
• Delos Van Earl

Viscus 3.0 "The Glass Works"

Gallery Walk Date - March 5th, 2010, 5 P.M to 8 P.M

Delos Van Earl’s paintings begin with layers of oil enamel paint. Within these layers he places shells, string, and pieces of glass among many other textural objects. He then starts the process of sanding and buffing the surfaces. The painting’s surfaces evolve from complex sanding, waxing and buffing, and that which was hidden at first is rediscovered. His work is filled with movement and touches on the organic harmony of life. It’s a process of discovery, unveiling the natural rhythm of things.

Delos Van Earl, "Sounds of Winter," 54" x 66"

• August 1st - August 28th
• Deborah Oropallo
• "Wild Wild West. Show"

Deborah Oropallo’s new body of work Wild Wild West provides a playful fashion-based performance art, based on the iconic West. Her pieces portray cowgirls wearing chaps, small skirts or swinging ropes. They appear sexy, playful and powerful.

Deborah Oropallo says, “Any kind of adornment can be beautiful, it can be subversive. So it’s about liberation in one sense, about these women being sexually overt, and it’s about hierarchy and bondage, sex and power. I wanted the merged images... to elevate maids, widows, nurses, and brides above the rank and file and make them the new royalty.”

"I think I’m looking for a hybrid of images that might reflect a notion of the pop west. Although there is a female sartorial humor in this work, I’m not just making fun of it. Is it the female equivalent of the Marlboro Man, symbol or stereotype – I’m not sure."

• August 1st - August 28th
• Jane Rosen
• "Summer Bird"

Jane Rosen, "Classy and Raven," Hand painted etching with lithography, 43" x 30"

• August 1st - August 28th
• Brad Rude

• June 29th - July 31st
• Julie Speidel

encompass an array of cultural influences, reaching back through antiquity to the stone- and bronze-age peoples of Europe, the early Buddhists of China, the indigenous tribes of her native Pacific Northwest, and on into twentieth-century modernism. Depending on our own spheres of knowledge, we may find in her work echoes of the British Isles’ megalithic stone structures, Cycladic Greek fertility figures, Native American totem poles, and dozens of other iconic cultural forms, some universally recognized, others buried by history. At the same time, her work is strongly linked to that of modernists like Henry Moore and Picasso, who were likewise enormously influenced by the language of antiquity and sought to reinterpret it through a contemporary lens.

“The inspiration for my work is rooted in the power of travel,” Speidel remarks, and indeed, her sculptures assimilate cultural influences in a manner reminiscent of traveloque--organic and intuitive, not academic or preordained.

• June 29th - July 31st
• Hung Liu
• Prints & Paintings

Hung Liu paints from historical photographs of Chinese subjects including images of Chinese female “types,” prostitutes, child street acrobats, war refugees, and women laboring at such tasks as pulling a boat upriver. She is turning a documented photograph into a reflective subject both preserving and destroying the image. The photo-based image is dissolved by washes suggesting the cultural and personal narratives that exist within each image.

She introduces traditional Chinese imagery to the surface of her pieces by suspending bits of art history in her work such as birds, flowers, stamps, and landscapes. She wants to evoke a sense of culture and history, combining the past and present.

Two layers of historical representation – from traditional painting and modern photography – co-exist in her paintings.

• June 29th - July 31st
• Laura McPhee
• Guardians of Solitude

For over five years—from 2003 to 2008—photographer Laura McPhee captured an unknown version of the modern American West. Normally based in Boston, McPhee sojourned to Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, to be the Alturas Foundation’s first artist-in-residence. During the course of the project, she lived in Idaho roughly six months out of the year, documenting the interaction between humanity and nature. The work she produced, “River of No Return,” became her first major solo museum exhibition. The show opened at The Boston Museum of Fine Arts in May 2006, then The Boise Museum of Art and several pieces have since traveled to The Guggenheim, Shanghai.

In the summer of 2008, McPhee returned to Idaho to photograph the aftermath of several Sawtooth National Forest wildfires, which she includes in her latest book “Guardians of Solitude,” a sequel to “River of No Return.” McPhee photographed new images of the area such as In Fourth of July Creek Canyon, 2008. The photograph depicts the rebirth of a land scorched and otherwise left for dead by wildfire. The forest floor’s new growth of green and flowering fireweed surround the trunks of the spiky burned trees presenting a cycle of life all at once. “What interests me about the forest fire and its aftermath really takes place on a more metaphorical level,” McPhee says. “I am interested by the idea that things happen in life, which have unintended consequences and that those consequences can seem very dark. Over time the meaning of the consequences changes. The forest becomes a different kind of magical place with its own positive biological outcomes. So from an environmental perspective and from an imaginative one, the fire is not at all what it first seems.” “Guardians of Solitude” will be will be published by Iris Editions in London and will be a large format volume with only twenty images.

• March 2nd - April 17th 
• Judith Kindler - "Gathering Together"

Judith Kindler peers into the individual and collective psyche in this new body of work entitled “Gathering Together”.   In mixed media paintings, sculpture and installation she explores human nature in the act of gathering together, through a series of mostly narrative imagery that combines faceless figures, birds, threads and chairs.

Do the chairs represent what is comfortable for us? Are the threads an illusion to the common connectivity and the idea of human destiny?  Are the birds symbolic of what we garner?  Are the faceless figures an attempt to distinguish the universality of human nature; possibly disregarding the individual experience?  These are some of the questions Kindler raises in an exhibition that also “gathers together” so many different medias in quiet contemplative, intellectually charged, symbolic, and playful works.

Judith Kindler, "Discovering the Common Thread," 20" x 16" each panel

• March 2nd - April 17th 
• Theodore Waddell - "50 Years of Paint"

This year marks Ted’s 50^th year of painting. His canvases are filled with endless combinations of colors, washes and sometimes wax. His impasto way of painting gives life to his paintings. The horses feel as though they could jump of the canvas. Ted’s many techniques create unique paintings that make him proud to be an oil painter!

Theodore Waddell, "Arco Horses #9," oil, encaustic on canvas, 24 3/4" x 49" F

• February 6 - March 3,  2009
  
• Lynda Lowe - "The Uncertainty Principle"

Lynda Lowe’s work is a constant discovery. Her paintings rich surfaces combine vibrant colors with the quiet presence of data. “All of the text included has something to do with observation and perception. Whether it’s scientifically or poetically described, it definitely integrates the finite and the infinite, measure and mystery.” Lynda incorporates everyday objects into her work that embody a spiritual dimension; images of trees, leaves, sticks, rocks, birds, shells, and bowls. Her goal is to bring the viewer into the present moment and leave them contemplating, exploring and living in the now. 

Lynda Lowe, "PSI: The Uncertainty Principle, Mixed Media on Panel, 32" x 111"

• February 6 - March 3,  2009
  
• David deVillier - "Boxes, Circles, and the Mechanics of Memory""

David deViller’s theatrical paintings never disappoint. They are always playful, filled with mystery and meaning. He paints a beautiful scene full of possible outcomes, leaving the viewer to determine the story. "I don't portray a particular place," he says. "I invent non-specific locations to create a world that is more universal." His paintings, which center around activity or curious inactivity, explore relationships and communications. 

David deVillier,"Bird of Prey," Acrylic on wood panel, 29 1/2" x 28 3/4" F

• February 6 - March 3,  2009
  
• Kenna Moser- "Lost and Found"

Kenna’s delicate beeswax, vintage envelope collaged pieces are filled with beauty and poetic statements. Imbedded under layers of her wax, letters or documents dating back to the early 18th century illuminated manuscript on vellum. The elegant script further provides evidence of a lost past and a dwindling form of human communication. Appliquéd birds, bunnies, flowers and whimsical characters dance along the surface of her graceful pieces.  

Kenna Moser, "Lift," 5" x 5"

• February 6 - March 3,  2009
  
• Jack Spencer
• Jack Spencer’s vivid photography captures a specific place and moment in time.  His photographs portray mystical images of horses and daunting images of a lost landscape. His work is sensual and often ethereal, always evoking emotion and conveying expression.  
  
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• Jack Spencer, "Happy Cowgirl 1/20," Archival Pigment print, 24 3/4" x 24 3/4" F  

• December 22 - February 2, 2008
  
•  Gary Komarin
  
• "Blue Scrubbed White"

• December 22 - February 2, 2008
  
•  Group Show - Featuring new artist Jane Rosen

Our group show will feature several artists who explore the use of subtly through their linear work. Valerie Hammond uses encaustic and printmaking processes to create layered images that trace a subject’s spirit. Jill Lear’s drawings explore the structural and spatial relationships within nature. This month we will also be featuring our new artist Jane Rosen. 

Jane Rosen's paintings and sculptures are mostly of animals she sees daily around her home in Northern California. Her ethereal drawings and organic sculptures evoke feelings of unity and understanding of this relationship between man and environment. She does not see her work as representational, but as portraits of being. She portrays the animal’s existence, their greater sense of being.  Her birds appear subtle and delicate; yet display a natural sense of strength and honor.

Rosen will often pour ink or coffee onto a sheet of paper, then place it outside, where animals may leave tracks upon the surface. She then begins to create the animals existence capturing a moment and identifying a specific space in time. Rosen’s sculptures are more evocative, less precise in her execution of her subject matter.  She uses rough limestone and textured sandstone portraying the animals in an almost contemplative state.

Brad Rude’s sculptures add a sense of whimsy and playfulness to the understanding of animal relationships. His bronze sculptures, which contain random objects and carefully chosen animals, create a story that is unique for each viewer.

Featuring Deborah Oropallo’s new body of work Wild Wild West. In this new work she explores the idea of the West. Her images reflect the notion of the pop west that exists today. Exploring the dichotomy of now and then.

• November 21 - January 16, 2008
  
•  Morgan Brig - "Journey"
  

• November 21 - January 16, 2008
• Rana Rochat

Rochat's new paintings combine lines, rhythms of dots and texture, and brilliant color to create a surface full of energy. Her process of painting with wax and pigment, applied one layer at a time, gives depth and luminosity to her language of mark making. Her paintings have an energy flow that is created through the movements of her lines.

• May 18th - June 26th

‘Flora and Fauna V’ Featuring encaustic & mixed media paintings by Christopher Reilly, Michelle Haglund, Lynda Lowe, Michael Gregory, David DeVillier, Kenna Moser, Rene Rickabaugh, and Allison Stewart. Sculpture by David Giese, Will Robinson, Delos van Earl, Jane Rosen and Brad Rude.

Gallery Two presents our tenth annual ‘Spring Landscape’ featuring paintings by James Cook, Theodore Waddell, Divit Cardoza, Michael Gregory and Sheila Gardner.

Gallery Three offers our tenth annual ‘Spring into Contemporary’ exhibition with Gary Komarin, Jun Kaneko, Cole Morgan, Kris Cox, Valerie Hammond and Rana Rochat. Sculpture by Therman Statom, Julie Speidel and Jun Kaneko.

Also continuing ‘Collaborations’ with paintings and sculpture by Hannah Finn and Jeff Uffelman. Gail Severn Gallery is also pleased to present new work on paper by Hung Liu.

Hannah Finn and Jeff Uffelman, "Mapmaker," 46" x 58"

• June 29th - July 31st
• Rene Rickabaugh

These incredibly detailed small-scale, epoxy resin and gouache flowers are splashed with color. Intricate patterns of meticulously applied gouache weave through images of bright flowers. The delicate flowers appear as they are floating within the frame, creating and a very special presentation. The amount of detail found in a postcard size piece is tantamount to that found in many large-scale paintings and with gouache being one of the most difficult mediums, the work becomes greatly impressive. Recognized as one of the finest artists in the Northwest for the last 35 years, Rickabaugh's attention to imaginative detail and design draw the viewer in for an intimate look at his exquisite paintings.

Rene Rickabaugh, "Blossom 12," Epoxy Resin and Gouache, 16 1/4" x 13 1/4" F

• August 31st - October 2nd
• Christopher Reilly and Michelle Haglund
• "Abundance"

Chris Reilly and Michelle Haglund’s newest series portray the cycle of life. Their work depicts natural transformation and evolution. The work often includes seeds, foliage and blossoms referencing the cycles of life depicting growth, life and death. The work is intriguing, yet quiet and peaceful. The pieces exude a sense of mystery creating a thought and image to meditate on or with.

Creating this work by adding and removing layers of encaustic, the surfaces begin on panel and then pastels, watercolor and molten wax to build their incredible paintings. The tactile surfaces are sensual and seductive.

Michelle Haglund, "Above the Pond," 25 1/2" x 49 1/2"

• August 31st - October 30th
• James Cook
• "Silver Creek"

James Cook paints because he loves it. The smell, texture, and feel of the brush wet from the paint stimulate his hand. His work is impressionistic, however, he provides the viewer with a recognizable reality. His impasto technique creates a surface full of movement and texture. The paintings jump of the canvas, the colors bringing them to life. The details of the image can examined closely and the scene grows increasingly cohesive from afar.

This body of work focuses on “Silver Creek.” He spends time in our area painting the landscape and documenting the incredible weather shifts.

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James Cook, "Silver Creek August #1," 42" x 70" UF

• October 6 - November 14, 2008
  
•  Contemporary Group Show
  

Contemporary group exhibition will explore color, surface and technique, featuring Raphaelle Goethals, Marcia Myers and Kris Cox each of whom explore texture and depth in diverse ways. Marcia Myers’ rich, colorful textured frescoes on linen divulge the old techniques of applying stone colored pigments to a plastered surface. Raphaelle Goethals uses encaustics to develop her beautifully organic surfaces, conveying a sense of space, depth and the fundamentality of light. Kris Cox uses a combination of encaustics, wood putty and tribal artifacts to capture a time in history. 

• October 6 - November 14, 2008
  
•   Group Landscape Show
  

Our group landscape show features Theodore Waddell, Sheila Gardner, James Cook and Michael Gregory. Each of these artists explores change throughout their paintings. Whether it is the changing colors of the seasons or the transformation of our American landscape. Using oil paint as their medium, each artist employs the various techniques associated with oils. Michael Gregory’s photo like paintings portrays the iconic American Farm landscape in a delicate, yet realistic way. Sheila Gardner uses oil to create a surface with many layers, highlighting the local areas mountains, trees and rivers. Theodore Waddell captures movement and form through his application of oils, creating an impressionistic view of the American West. Painting images of horses, cattle and sheep in open fields and against colorful skies, Waddell weaves a western dream.  James Cook’s surfaces are textured by his thick and vigorous use of oil paint, depicting the natural energy of the Idaho environment.

• November 21 - December 22, 2008
• Group Landscape Show

Our group landscape show features Theodore Waddell, James Cook, Michael Gregory and Laura McPhee.

• November 21 - December 22, 2008
  
•  Contemporary Group Show
  

Contemporary group exhibition will include works by Squeak Carnwath, Kris Cox, Woods Davy, Bean Finneran, Raphaelle Goethals, Valerie Hammond, Andrew Harper, Jun Kaneko, Judith Kindler, Gwynn Murrill, Christopher Reilly, Mario Reis, David Secrest and Julie Speidel.  

• August 25 - September 26, 2008
  
• Michael Gregory - Middle of Nowhere
  

Michael Gregory's paintings, icons of the American landscape, radiate a contemporary old master look. Painted in many layers of oil on panel, his barns, silos, rancher structures, and prairie houses are quiet but alluring images. These past several years his palette of white, black, and gray held a mere suggestion of warmth added by an undetermined source of light. The buildings were front and center in Gregorys work for the past five years.

In his most recent work, the artists decisions are fueled by a desire to create a shift in visual space in the paintings. His newest works are a step back, a new vista onto the landscape of the west and mid west. There are images of workers in the fields and structures that Gregory chooses to paint - ordinary structures - which announce themselves in the landscape. As in his past paintings, they are the humblest of architectural forms.

Gregory paints structures that are American at heart and could only rise from the American landscape, often the only vertical in sight, cathedral-like in their austerity. As Gregory travels around this country, he is captivated by the "personalities" of structures, many of them barns of infinite variability. The barns, as other Gregory buildings, greet the viewer front and center with power, boldness, and assertiveness, iconic in their frontality. Gregory sets the stage for each structure, sometimes with the suggestion of a landscape: trees, telephone poles, and always with a dramatic sky, charged with mystery. These are not tranquil skies; they are evocative, cloud filled, disquieting ones. The viewer's equilibrium is further challenged by the absence of any mid-ground in the artist's work, thus giving little sense of perspective or scale. While representational, Gregory's paintings are not "true" to the landscape vista he has seen. He transforms the reality of a geometric structure into an icon, a structure that is the focal point, the subject, the object of the painting, and a touchstone to contemplation. 

• August 25 - September 26, 2008
  
• Allison Stewart

Allison Stewart has gained recognition for her mixed media paintings that express the restless balance between man and nature. Trained as a biologist, Stewart is inspired by landscape imagery, specifically the vanishing Louisiana coastal wetlands. Stewart takes as her subject fragile environments, cycles of life, and evidence of man's mark on nature. She uses layers of color, light, form and texture to address issues of beauty and loss, time and transformation. Residing somewhere between realism and abstraction, the paintings are visual diaries upon which Stewart records her responses to the threatened landscape.

In 1998, Stewart co-founded KID smART, a Louisiana 501.c.3 non-profit organization to teach under resourced children in inner city New Orleans important life lessons through hands on arts activities. Through in-school, after-school and Saturday classes in the visual and performing arts, KID smART provides a safe, nurturing environment for elementary and middle school children to learn life skills that will make them more successful in all walks of life: self esteem, teamwork, creative problem solving and pride of accomplishment. www.kidsmart.org

Allison Stewart has exhibited extensively throughout the United States. Her work is included in many public and corporate collections, a few examples of which are: the US Department of State Art in Embassies Program, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the South Carolina Art Museum, the Pensacola Museum of Art, and the National Museum of Women and the Arts and many more.

• August 25 - September 26, 2008
  
• Raphaelle Goethals - Adrift
  

Raphaëlle Goethals uses wax and resin in her paintings, which are exploration of light and space. Goethals works are a process of layering, pouring, scraping off, scratching into the surface, effacing, and leaving traces of earlier information. 

“The work presented in this exhibition refines and widens my preoccupation with space, depth, and the fundamentality of light. Testifying to my continuing interest in the history of painting and in the point at which language originates, these vast surfaces refer to a Jungian space, a semiotic world, an uncoded, unarticulated space of interpretation. The spaces are not contained, they are fields that might expand indefinitely- yet the discreet presence of the grid anchors us in a present time, a verbal and cultural surimposition.”

• August 25 - September 26, 2008
  
• Ed Musante 
  

Ed Musante's small-scale paintings of birds and animals, painted on wood panel or his signature found cigar boxes, are intimate portraits of wildlife. Musante captures the presence of each bird through careful observation and attention to detail. His exquisite paintings incorporate text and pattern from the cigar boxes.

• July 25 - August 18, 2008
• David DeVillier

David deVillier’s colorful narrative paintings, framed in bold steel frames welded by the artist, are splashed with fanciful images of instruments, birds and women. Within the paintings, you can expect to find anything from a flute perched atop a lone chair, to a multi-colored bird wearing bright red stilettos. deVillier’s imaginative works and titles are satiated with emotionally driven messages while at times being sharply humorous and full of wit. Mysterious and playful paintings created by this nationally recognized artist balance a highly educated background at Yale with an outsider’s aesthetic. Lone women and outrageous birds find themselves on painted stages and in scenes rather than in the typical art-lexicon of foregrounds and backgrounds. The artist’s theatre is full of details and symbols, like a bird morphing into partially human forms that give depth to each unfolding drama. Curious, passionate, and enigmatic – the figures have imaginative stories that play out in front of the viewer. deVillier wants the viewer to take his gift of these complex images and make the stories their own.

• July 25 - August 18, 2008
  
• Victoria Adams - "Updraft"
  

Adam's paintings explore landmasses, ponds, and estuaries, and, in this latest body of work, vast stretches of ocean. From the abstract to the referential, Adams' visions are ethereal--an energy field devoid of people and places but with intense figuration of another kind. She layers oil paints, working first with opaque layers and finishing with transparent glazes. She sometimes references her last painting, often working in series. Cloud formations directly seen, photographs, or images from Hudson River School or European painters are sometimes appropriated or quoted--borrowed elements from the past that are recombined and synthesized to create entirely new and contemporary works. The vistas and skies in each painting are fictional, made up from imagination and coalescing in an unplanned way during the painting process. The painted light serves to activate the scene. The land becomes the resting place for a poignant light-and cloud-filled sky. Adams leaves a distant horizon and a narrow strip of land or water that functions as a threshold, holding the viewer at a distance. These vistas are not precise locales. Rather, the horizons are gateways to the faraway, symbols of everything beyond - real or imagined. There is a blurring in the paintings of the spatial boundary between the visible and the unseen environment as well as the temporal boundary between the here and now, merging with what is to be. Standing before these complex skyscapes, the viewer experiences their scale and luminosity. The sky, the horizon and elevated viewpoints from which to gaze up and out are symbols well represented in Western landscape, but first and foremost, for the artist, they are natural symbols. Taken from the essay in the catalog and exhibition "Updraft."

• July 25 - August 18, 2008
  
• Gary Nisbet

Boxed

Gary Nisbet’s current show, "boxed", is a study and reflection of the everyday objects that have been part of his vocabulary for over a decade. He has always been a collector of interesting bits of cultural detritus: bits of broken plaster, fragments of wood molding, rusty kitchen utensils, surf glass, and interesting textiles. Occasionally he would incorporate these items into his work, but mostly he just collected them. Once he encased these little treasures in their painted boxes, they were transformed into strange little icons.

Unlike paintings, the little treasure boxes are meant to be handled and explored from all sides. They’re beautiful and quirky looking at first glance and visitors are eager to handle them and open them up!

• July 25 - August 18, 2008
  
• Cole Morgan

Cole finds eloquence in the most banal minutiae, which he then fashions into wildly incongruous cross-cultural associations. In the vernacular of Morgan’s canvases, triangles, pyramids, squiggly cars and balls happily co-exist with X’s and O’s, planets and figures. Not that he sets out to plan these things. He speaks of being “taken" by these objects, adding, “when I’m done ‘exploring’ them, a new one presents itself.”

Cole Morgan’s self-contained, abstract paintings confront our perceptions of reality. It is as if he’s sending us a message: If we look beyond accepted notions of form and function, we might discover a parallel reality amidst the familiar. Morgan’s primary goal is to direct, but never to guide us through constant discovery in his paintings. The tools he employs to “conduct” our eye are as likely to be drawn from classical principles of painting as from the vernacular of the mundane. The cross element or triangle construction, a style derived from 17th-century religious tableaux of the Holy Trinity, provides spatial division in his compositions as he re-configures shapes and objects to a new purpose. But if Morgan ascribes to any religion, it would be the one of “Order”, in which composition is distilled to its barest minimum, where “shapes, textures and colors are refined and concentrated to their most visually descriptive elements. Every square millimeter of canvas is controlled.”

For anyone in search of meaning, Morgan’s obscure notes to himself and primal scratchings are fool’s gold, since value is wholly subjective. Indeed, meaning is an afterthought, because in spite of all the tease, all the titillation of controlled form and classic proportions to direct our gaze, the tour on which this artist takes us is nothing but an elaborate ruse designed to free our imagination. All the self-important scribbles are just that, and meaningless lies, as it did for the Dadaists, only in what we make of Morgan’s clues to the trail of our subconscious.

• June 23 - July 21, 2008
• Therman Statom

Since Therman Statom worked at Pilchuck in Seattle, Washington in 1971, he has been known as an innovator. Throughout his career, he has pushed the boundaries of his medium - challenging us to look at glass in new and interesting ways. Through extensive research of his subject of choice, Statom creates exquisite and colorful sculptures. After thoroughly studying subjects like ancient Egyptian gardens, Statom lets the subject permeate his work. As a draftsman and a painter, Statom builds architecturally inspired pieces filled with found objects and vibrantly painted images. Ranging from small houses, to wall pieces and large-scale walk through installations, Statom creates sculptures and paintings on and with sheets of flat and blown glass. His work is in such notable collections as: The Detroit Institute of Arts; The High Museum of Art-Atlanta, GA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Milwaukee Art Museum; Musee des Arts Decoratifs; Palais du Louvre-Paris, France; Musee de Design et D'Arts; Appliqués/Contemporain, Lausanne, Switzerland; Oakland Museum of Arts and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian's American Art Museum-Washington, DC. Therman's work has been the subject of one-person exhibitions at Museums throughout the world.

• June 23 - July 21, 2008
• Jun Kaneko

Japanese-American Jun Kaneko is an internationally known master of ceramics. In his massive kilns, he creates his renowned "dangos" (the Japanese word for dumpling), and massive human faces and wall slabs out of clay, finished with beautiful glazes. His painting background is evident in his work, where his monolithic ceramics become three-dimensional, inflated canvases. Working primarily with graphic, yet painterly lines and dots, his rhythmic designs offer palette ranges from black and white dots or stripes, to blues, reds and yellows set against black or white backgrounds. Constructing pieces that weigh, as much as 1,000 lbs, Kaneko's simplified forms and control of the material make the pieces seem effortless. His technical aptitude comes from years of patience and an understanding of the temperamental medium. After construction, his work generally takes four months of drying time and up to a 35-day firing process. At the end of this process - out of a group of 10 pieces Kaneko may only deem two to three to be worthy of his name.

The late Peter Voulkos, Kaneko's professor at the University of California at Berkley and an influential artist in his own right, described Kaneko's work: "His accomplishments are unrivaled in the field of ceramic art. His technical achievements alone have redefined the possibilities the medium has to offer." He then goes on to say, "Kaneko's ceramic works are an amazing synthesis of painting and sculpture. His works are enigmatic and elusive, simultaneously restrained and powerful, Eastern and Western, static and alive, intellectual and playful, technical and innovative."

Kaneko's exhibition history spans over 40 years and is included in many public collections. A few of these collections include: the De Young Museum, Detroit Institute of Art, San Francisco Museum of Fine Art, Honolulu Academy of Art, Oakland Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian National Museum of American Art , Wakayama Museum of Modern Art, The National Museum of Art in Osaka, Japan, and The Olympic Museum of Ceramic Sculpture in Athens, Greece.

• May 12 - June 23, 2008
• The Eloquent Flower XII

The 12th ANNUAL ELOQUENT FLOWER SHOW Christopher Reilly, Michelle Haglund, Valerie Hammond, Andy Harper, Jack Spencer, Judith Kindler, Gary Nisbet, Kenna Moser, Rene Rickabaugh, Sandy Sallin, Morgan Brig, Allison Stewart, David DeVillier, Ron Van Dongen, Michael Gregory, Donald Campbell, Tony Berlant, Lynda Lowe, and Donald and Era Farnsworth. Also exhibiting Brad Rude, David Secrest, Julie Speidel, and Rod Kagan.

• March 3 - April 11, 2008
  
• Nicole Charbonnet - The West, Then and Now
  

Nicole Charbonnet's mixed media paintings, highly esteemed in the contemporary art scene, have texture and depth like rich collage. Images, words and loose washes create multi dimensions. Western imagery and pop culture icons provoke memories of the idealized west. She is mainly using stereotypical images of America, a cowboy, gangster or desert (highway, as a way of exploring our past and present perceptions of (ourselves and others. Which comprises and forms our identity as members of a society, or citizens of a country that once again seems to be in (transition and in the process of redefining its values, agenda and (role in relationships. Her process of painting mimics or simulates the process (of remembering with all its layers and numerous textures. Hopefully, (introducing into this process images that come out of our cultural (memory will result in paintings that will not only serve to illuminate (the past but will also encourage interpretations which function as (starting points themselves. This body of work focuses on the American West. 

Recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant and Artist's Fellowship Foundation Grant.

• March 3 - April 11, 2008
  
• James Cook - The Landscape
  

James Cook's abstract and impressionistic composition and use of light separate his work from traditional landscape artists. Fallen aspen trees reflected in water and rocky hillsides of brilliant expressionistic color unfolds in thick oil paint that morph into clear view. This body of work displays our beautiful surroundings from the Sawtooths to Silver Creek. Upon first encounter, Cook's paintings mesmerize and pull us in. Yet it is through their untiring freshness, each is all the more amazing in their ability to hold our attention that removes the din of contemporary distractions. He awakens an internal dimension taking one aback. Cook, however, is not a propagandist, in that he leaves it to each of us to explore the world as we experience and see it.

• February 2 - February 29, 2008
  
• Deborah Oropallo
  

Deborah Oropallo’'s show continues in the Viewing Room at the Gail Severn Gallery. Deborah'’s exhibition explores the artistic transition from painting to digital imaging. By incorporating the multimedia of printmaking, photography, digital technology and tapestry, Oropallo brings classical art into the modern realm. Using the costume of the socially powerful: the police and military, and the guise of the socially powerless: the French maid and the Cowgirl, Oropallo’'s feminist twist provokes the institutional roles. Paradoxically demonstrating the woman, as a man, as a whole being, Oropallo shows women radiating a complex yet dominant and quiet strength.

• February 2 - February 29, 2008
  
• Delos Van Earl - Current Perspective
  

Using multiple layers of paint and deconstruction, Delos Van Earl’s paintings/sculptures are an exploration, revealing the transformation from raw material to a multifaceted work of art. After applying each layer of material, he sands, scrubs, and buffs the oil, enamel and mixed media on panel to expose the true surface and process of the piece. His paintings are a reflection of his life. His steel and bronze sculptures are also textured and exposed after weathering an range of techniques. The result for both the paintings and the sculpture are tactile journeys that invite the viewer to reach out and touch their surfaces.

• February 2 - February 29, 2008
  
• Encaustics
  

Christopher Reilly, Michelle Haglund and Raphael Goethals explore the use of encaustics to develop their beautifully organic paintings. Reilly and Haglund paint the nuances of the natural world - including trees, plants, flowers butterflies and birds. Goethals’ takes a more non- objective approach using color and tone to create serene and engaging paintings. All three artist have a the ability to present lush and romantic images that move beyond the everyday.

• February 2 - February 29, 2008
  
• Theodore Waddell - Quarter Horses and Other Dreams
  

Theodore Waddell has been described as an artists – artist. As a rancher, and constant painter, he is inspired by his immediate surroundings. His abstract expressionistic style captures his subject’s natural form and movement with contemporary sparity. Painting impressionistic images of horses, cattle and sheep in open fields and against colorful skies, Waddell weaves a western dream. His works in oil and encaustic on canvas, bronze and wood sculptures, along with graphite and oil on paper engage the viewer to share in the moment and be part of his experience. His passion for animals, including his beloved dogs, emerge from the paintings in a heartfelt burst of color and emotion.

• December 21, 2007 - February 8, 2008
  
• Jan Aronson - While Rome Burns
  

Nationally acclaimed for her paintings that capture nature and abstraction concurrently, Aronson continues to paint stylized studies of leaves, rocks, and water in both oil on canvas, graphite and watercolor on paper. Vital and lurid colors painted with quick, short strokes of paint draw you deep into the grooves of every rock and the crest of every water ripple. Aronson’s paintings are arresting not only for the rich use of color and perspective but for their personal sense of psychological and formal considerations. Her images are alive, moving and suspended in time.