METROPOLITAN PAINTING GALLERY
David A. clark
FLOATER FRAMES for paintings on panels
About the artist
Many years ago a close friend loaned me an old tin red-arrow sign that used to hang in a theatre where we had both worked. For me that sign symbolized an idealized sense of connection. It stood for the freedom that comes from leaping into the unknown in front of a crowd of strangers and represented the exhilarating rush of trepidation and possibility that accompanies an actor’s path from the wings onto the stage. I had that tin arrow in my office for many years until I had to give it back, and not long after I let it go I found arrows showing up in my work. Since then I have explored the idea of the arrow and what it symbolizes for me in many different forms.
Arrows are much more than a symbol; they are a metaphor for being. In my work the arrow is a representation of the human figure, an expression of movement, time or state of being, a meditation on direction, impulse or legacy, and as a collective, an illustration of the journey or state of humankind.
I’ve explored the arrow in many different ways in my work, but I have always been inspired by that first arrow. It has been my talisman each step of the way.
lisa mcshane
FLOATER FRAMES for paintings on panels
About the artist
The art that I love best moves my soul and I aim for that deep beauty in my paintings. I love the place I live and the people in my world and so I work again and again to capture what I see and experience. I want people to see this achingly beautiful world that I see.
My paintings begin as drawings and often as a deeply personal memory of a specific moment where the light stirred me: a river, an early morning on a beach, the island where I live at low tide, the view of the mountains and rivers I love from above. I draw directly on toned linen, paint the image in umber, and then add the sky using as many layers as it takes to develop depth and texture. Skies, clouds, water, reflections and a sense of luminosity are central to my work and so I begin with them.
Dale Laitinen
FLOATER FRAMES for paintings on panels
About the artist
The landscape has always figured prominently in my art-consciousness. Throughout my painting life, the bigness of the West, with its expansive vistas, has had me painting the optimistic promise of open space.”
Drawing and painting have been a life-long pursuit for Dale Laitinen. He calls it chasing shadows to find the light. As a young child he was always the artist, drawing before he could read. Dale first put brush to canvas in the nineteen six- ties, and has continued to the Present.
After graduating from San Jose State University in 1975 with a degree in Fine Art, he began painting full-time in the nineteen eighties. He sells his work in galleries in California and teaches workshops across the country.
Dale was one of the Jurors for the National Watercolor Society’s 2022 International Exhibition. He is published widely and his most recent article is in the 2022 October Plein Air Magazine. He has published a book called “Blue Shadow Country” available at blurb.com. Also his Video is available at Streamline Publishing.
He recently moved his home and studio to Placitas, New Mexico after living most of his life in California.
Barbara Kacicek
About the artist
My paintings and drawings, intimate in scale, are a reflection of my quiet, contemplative existence. Often bathed in the light of the ‘magic hour’, my subjects are imbued with a sense of mystery, mysticism, memory and poetry under thoughtful, careful observation. Surrounded by beauty, my intent is to capture the lucid stillness of natural light over skin, stones, fruit, clouds — each one a unique, rapturous, wordless meditation on form, light and color, revealing the unseen world through the seen world. My work is informed by my personal spiritual practices, the Old and Modern Masters, earth, water, sky, phases of the moon, the music and poetry of singer-songwriters, the human figure, silence, my hands. I am leading myself to a secret dream that I have had over and over again.
Oriana Ingber
GALLERY FRAMES
for paintings on panels
About the artist
A DC-based contemporary realist painter, Oriana Ingber began showing her work at eleven years old when invited to exhibit her paintings at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center, NYC. Taught and nurtured by her fine artist parents from an early age, she simultaneously pursued careers as a professional ballet dancer and painter. At twenty-one, after having danced with New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater, National Ballet of Canada, and Suzanne Farrell Ballet, she focused solely on her first passion: painting. Drawing on the discipline acquired during her years of ballet training, she joined the online "painting a day" movement and developed her own distinctive style through the daily practice of alla prima painting. Fusing a modern design aesthetic with nostalgic retro subject matter and a flair for color, Oriana creates work that fits comfortably in any discerning collector’s home. Her internationally recognized and deliciously inspired oil paintings evoke comforting memories we all have - of delighting in the unifying pleasure of food.
Fernando reyes
FLOATER FRAMES for paintings on panels
About the artist
My career was originally defined by an academic style of painting, heavily dedicated to figuration. My figurative paintings are a colorful visual journey of the human. The interaction between the model and artist can suggest a pose to be humorous, spirited or in reverie through conscious and unconscious signals through which our bodies communicate, typically with greater eloquence than what verbal communication allows. Drawing from life is a fundamental practice which allows me to depict the beauty, strength and sensuality of the human form.
Over the course of my career, I have built a diverse portfolio and an extensive exhibition history. In 2018, I was honored with a retrospective at the Mexican Museum of Art in San Francisco. My work can be found in the collections of Stanford University Medical Center, Alameda County Arts Collection Sutter Cathedral Hills Hospital, Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art and other corporate and private collections. Today, I split my time between two studios in Oakland and the Sierra foothills, finding inspiration in the diversity of his surroundings.
Andrea Pramuk
About the artist
"I create organic, drawing-based abstractions. My pictures may seem familiar at first, but on closer inspection, they are not things that exist, but rather lyrical subjects whose dialogue originates out of line, color and light. I reference earth-based imagery constant throughout time and weave it into a visually complex space of memory and human experience.”
Peter Arvidson
FLOATER FRAMES FOR CRADLED PANELS
About the artist
Over the past several years I have been working in two related but different styles that I refer to as “color fields” and “color scapes”. The color field paintings are abstract paintings that focus on color and color harmonies. These pieces are painted in loose grids and concentric squares that are often monochromatic with related colors gently introduced and juxtaposed. Some of these paintings evoke horizons and landscapes while others tend toward musical and life rhythms. Creating these works is a meditative process while concentrating on the nuances of color and repetitive mark-making.
The color scape paintings share a love of color but are an ongoing series of imagined landscapes influenced by a life near the sea, trips to the countryside and passages from books and novels. These pieces tend toward simple, child-like renderings of patchwork countrysides and seascapes with little houses, rolling hills and dancing trees recalling more innocent times.
Carl Buttke
About the artist
Currently I am painting a series I refer to as “Reflections”. These are watercolor paintings meant to convey the mystery between the real and imagined by painting images of forest reflections on our waters of the San Juan Islands.
I paint these images abstractly using an abundance of water and a heavily loaded brush with paint either laid directly onto the paper or into a pool of water already laid down on the paper. I use hot press watercolor paper having a smooth surface on which to lay the pool of water or paint. This series lends itself to a limited pallet dominated by Hooker's Green and Indigo and the mixing of colors on the paper rather than on the pallet. For example, the dark almost black areas conveying shadows in the forest is accomplished by laying down a pool of Indigo into which is added Hooker's Green and then mixed on the paper to produce a deep dark and alive color. The result is a painting unique for watercolor with vibrant deep contrasting color, mostly low key, with varying intensity and texture.
My paintings are then finished to display them without having to be framed behind glass thus eliminating glare of light on the artwork. I stretch and mount hot press watercolor paper on a framed or cradled panel such as Ampersand Gessobord or Claybord with a Natural pH adhesive. When the painting is finished, I spray it with Golden Archival Varnish to seal the painting and provide UVLS protection to reduce light damage. It is then sealed again with Dorland's Wax, which adds a unique texture to the surface of the painting. This coating results in protection against dust, moisture, and even water. I have used this process for paintings varing in size from 12 x 9 inches to 60 x 30 inches.
Charles Marburg
About the artist
My paintings are the result of over twenty years of daily work in my studio; of continuous thought about image, shape, color, meaning; and of the very paint I use as an extension of myself, a conduit between my stumbling human efforts and the pale flicker of my unconscious.
Al Torres
About the artist
Torres is continuing the painting genre started by Yaacov Agam. The visual effect in this genre of painting is perceived as movement. Torres paints directly onto the painting surface which are aluminum angles at 45 degrees which are mounted on a wood panel.
Torres received his MFA in painting from the New York Academy of Art. He has trained with renowned realists such as Steven Assael and Vincient Desiderio as well as Bennett Vandnais and Andrew Reiss. His work has been exhibited in venues such as Gaston County Museum, The Cape Cod Museum of Art, The Katonah Museum of Art, The Reading Public Museum, The Queens Museum of Art, The Mint Museum of Art, and Sotheby’s Auction House. He is an art instructor at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte NC. Torres has an active studio in Huntersville, NC.
Alex wilhite
| About the artist My years of experience in traveling throughout the world guide my inspiration about the value of color, which changes every hour as every day. My perception of color is the value of the primary colors changing into varieties of colors as “Meditation Myth”. I am drawn to follow the value of nature’s colors as they change from sunrise to sunset. This requires the employment of homemade paint from dust to create my vision of art. |
Jennifer Bain
About the artist
My work focuses on image appropriation and how varied source material can co-exist in a believable manner. Referenced as post- modern still life in genre, they often contain stories or commentaries beyond intrigue or beauty. Playing with notions of image “acceptability”, and shifting emotional reactions to the content, I give a respectful nod of appreciation to such genres as botanical illustration and still life.
I pay close attention to the characteristics of my materials, letting the notion of process and material contribute and construct the content of the work.
Most recently white backgrounds have given way to intricate structures of colored grids which represent the complex inter-link of technology in contemporary life. Employing the form of a bird as self portrait, I attempt to remove self-consciousness. The type of bird used as well as the personality they take on as I paint, expresses my moods and distinctions of mind. The titles refer to bird song.
Ginny Herzog
About the artist
A fascination with architecture has inspired me to create mixed media paintings for over thirty years. Utilizing my digitally manipulated photos, as collage, I piece portions of different architectural elements that are unrelated to each other and construct new, intriguing forms in my paintings. The compositions are constructed for a fusion of multiple perspectives. My application of oils mixed with cold wax medium on panels sometimes suggest fresco walls, concrete or steel. Linear detail with graphite, crayons, oil sticks and pencils provide a visual pathway throughout the composition and imply elements of an architectural drawing.
Marian Steen
About the artist
My work is the equivalent of keeping a visual art diary. I create paintings that convey hope, and beauty through the interplay between color, line, and texture. I accomplish that by combining watercolor & acrylic paint with collage pieces & string, along with stamping techniques.