BRITTNEY MILLER - April 15 - May 31

BRITTNEY MILLER's Bio....So... I didn't want to write something cheesy about myself, to sound really appealing and over the top. I want to be honest with everyone and true to myself..So... Words from the Artist. Basically I am an asprising an artist. And I get a lot of shit from it from people when i tell them. Most people have told me that "artists are always starving" or "artists are drunks," and my most favorite, and what my own father told me....."artists aren't famous till they are dead". So here are some tid bits of info about me. I use a lot of color in my artwork. I live in Sacramento. I go to a community college. Born and raised in California. Inspiration comes from my everyday life. I get nervous easily. I want to become a teacher one day.

CAMERON CHERNOFF - Marc. 1 - Apr 15, 2010

CAMERON CHERNOFF - Artist Statement

My Art has always been a spiritual and contemplative practice. I create art because it allows me to communicate with something that is greater then myself. I seek awareness and understanding of the underlying nature of the world through the creative process. For me, making Art is like catching a wave when I surf. Once the energy builds up, I harness that energy and ride it out in the medium I choose. Through my art I wish to connect viewers to the mysteries and wonders of creation and create a portal to the divine nature of the imagination.

I am an instinctual artist and I express my vision through colors and patterns. The right combination of colors, patterns, and forms can unlock states of higher consciousness. In todayís world of materialism and spiritual crisis, I feel it necessary for artists to rejuvenate the importance of spirituality in our culture. It is my goal as an artist to create windows between the material and spiritual realms. I believe I can achieve this not just through the use of my two physical eyes but also through the use of my third inner eye. It is for this reason that I have an ongoing theme of eyes in my work. I often portray eyes in my work to convey seeing beyond the surface of things.

The themes of my work fall into two categories and represent my idea of going beyond the surface. First is an internal landscape of the mind and my push to separate the layers of illusion and arrive at the core of our existence. The imagery in these paintings involves the awakening and separation of the human spirit from its physical body. Second is an external view of the world and the unveiling of the surface of the landscape. I call these paintings ìenergyscapesî instead of landscapes because I try to look beyond just the land and its scenery and paint the energy that is beneath the surface. There are some realistic elements to these paintings combined with more abstract interpretations. I feel that combining some recognizable scenes or monuments allows the viewer an access point into my painting.

Much of the symbolism in my work stems from my studies of ancient mystical traditions such as the kabbalah or shamanism. I am deeply inspired by the sacred forms and patterns of indigenous art and also attracted to the colors and techniques of contemporary visionaries. I often appropriate some of these sacred symbols in my work, such as the yin and yang or the star of David, because I feel they have a powerful effect on the viewer. Every ancient culture has meaningful symbols that represents their view of a greater truth about our world that is beyond words. My artwork shares their view of seeing the sacred in the world around us to help uncover the true nature of reality.

My artistic influences range from art of indigenous cultures such as Native American tribal art or Tibetan tangka paintings to more famous artists such as Picasso and Dubuffet. These artists admired and were inspired by the depth and beauty of so -called “primitive art.” I also feel deeply connected to the modern day visionary movement led by Alex Grey and Luke Brown. I appreciate all artwork that is visually stimulating and alive as well as communicating the spirituality of humanity.

JEFF ROSIER - Jan. 15 - Feb. 28, 2010

SERIES STATEMENT: mannequin WONDERLAND

I have long been interested in the composition of objects on display in shop windows – and now am intrigued by their reflections. I have also become fascinated by the fashionable poses of the headless or faceless mannequins and their P.O.V. – we look in while they look out – at the city, the sky and the passerby.

This series of ethereal and at times surreal images takes advantage of both the transparent and reflective qualities of glass. The compositions evoke a spatial wonderland where the viewer finds a new world constructed in the common storefront scene. As I explore various cities with my camera, I compose the images in a single exposure and not with Photoshop.

The images were shot digitally with either a Leica C-Lux 1 or D-Lux 4. They are printed on Museo Silver Rag 100% cotton archival paper with a gloss finish and matted using archival quality materials.

ARTIST STATEMENT: Jeff Rosier

Jeff Rosier lives and works in the San Francisco bay area. ATELIER ROSIER serves as his studio for explorations in architectural design, photography, and painting. Jeff has degrees in physics and architecture. While he photographs primarily buildings, this series animates the figure into the space of the city.

GEORGIANNE FASTAIA - Dec. 1, 2009 - Jan. 15, 2010

ARTIST STATEMENT - Georgianne Fastaia

To make art with all the questions answered deprives the viewer of participating in the joy of discovery. For me, painting is poetic and can only suggest emotion. The choices I make, between figuration and abstraction and what is implied and what is revealed, are designed to engage the viewer. My work is about transforming the “mistake”. I re-use old canvases, actively damaging the surfaces in order to affirm a more authentic concept of beauty and to express an evocation of mystery. I strive for emotional honesty in my work and rely on an intuitive sense of color and an immediacy of gesture to achieve it.



SERIES STATEMENT
The Floating City: New Orleans after the Flood paintings about the longing for home

In 2006, I responded to Hurricane Katrina with my series, After the Flood. In this new series The Floating City, the impossibility of painting the physical reality of the flood allowed me to focus on the emotional reality. My primary goal is to convey the despair many felt upon seeing the devastation.

A square with a triangle atop it is one of the first symbols a child draws. These naively rendered houses represent our memory of and longing for home. As the series evolved, these symbols of home became more abstract and totemic while "the flood" itself became a metaphor for the displacement that many of us, living far from our families, experience. My challenge has been to translate this sense of dislocation from our roots into the language of paint- using texture, composition, and color
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I have given each painting its own “history” through a distressing process of scrubbing, scraping and wiping away paint to reveal shadows and faded colors. These ghosts of underlying imagery buried below layers of paint, visually communicate abstract concepts of impermanence, time passing, and erosion.

To reinforce a sense of our smallness against the "bigness of nature" I’ve placed buildings in the lower third of the canvas, as if dwarfed by the sky. In other pieces, multiple horizon lines shift the imagery into the center of the picture plain, as if floating, with houses reflected in the sky above and the water below. This composition is designed to dislocate the viewer from their normal frame of reference.

I use a palette of somber violets, green-grays and translucent layers of milky color to convey the quality of light after a storm, the thick saturated air, and a mood of quiet desolation that I recall growing up along the Connecticut shore.