A new exhibit in the Museum’s Hall of
History features eight East Bay artists working in a variety of media.
“Eight-Point Perspective: Diverse East Bay Artists” was organized by Vallejo
native Doug Heine, whose work was featured in a solo show at the Museum last
spring. Although planning of the exhibit has been underway for several months,
finding a connecting theme or narrative for the show was elusive, according to
Heine. “Mainly because of the diversity of media and styles of the eight
artists, it soon became apparent that this diversity was the theme,” says Heine. “Diversity is what the East Bay is
known for, so I hope everyone will enjoy seeing the art and hearing the artists
speak about their creations.” Each artist will speak briefly about his/her work
at the opening reception on Saturday, January 20 at 1:00 p.m. Here are the
artists featured in the exhibit:
Katie Hawkinson is a Bay Area Abstract Painter with an ongoing interest in color and
light, and capturing visually something of what it feels like to be alive. She
feels a strong connection to makers and painters from the beginning of time
from all over the world. Katie is inspired by cave paintings, Roman
frescoes, Indian miniatures, early American folk art, through twentieth century
abstraction and beyond. Katie teaches Painting at Stanford’s Continuing Studies
Department and Drawing and Two-dimensional Design at UC Berkeley’s
Architecture Department.
Doug
Heine is working with industrial as
pigment on aluminum, which can feel like reaching into the unknown. Although an
abstraction, the work has an elusive, mysterious quality that harkens to the
ever-expanding cosmos.
Stan Huncilman was born in Indiana.
After graduating from high
school he left home with no particular destination in mind. His travels
led him to stints as a welder in the shipyards of Louisiana
and as a machinist
in a Vermont foundry. Not long after leaving Vermont he joined the Peace Corps and went to Ecuador to teach in a trade school
for orphans. After the Peace Corps he eventually settled in San Francisco California and began his formal art education. He attended San Francisco
State University and the San Francisco Art Institute.
He
received his MFA in Sculpture
from the Art Institute in 1984.
Joseph
Slusky is best known for his whimsical painted metal sculptures made from
recycled scrap metal. Influences include metal toys, LA car culture,
Constructivism and other twentieth century art movements. The sculptures
explore realms of the subconscious and are fossilizations of the imagination.
Joe taught drawing and three-dimensional design UC Berkeley’s Architecture
Department for thirty-two years
Abstract
painting called Bonnie Thomas first,
only to be taken later with photography's compositions and focus on the small
and minute beauty within the every-day experience. She then began to alter the
captured image to discover a unique combination of the orthogonal edge, the
organic world and her inner self. The explorations prominent in her latest work
are the contrast between dark and light, the chasm between the expressed and
unexpressed, and the questions that may represent joy, fear or that part of the
human experience which eludes us. With this exploration, she believes the work
takes her deeper into the unknown parts of herself within the greater context of
the natural order.
Maren
Van Duyn is a senior designer at Scientific Arts (the people that did the
giant Glove at AT&T Park). With them she has done large murals at the
California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and the natural history section
of the Oakland Museum. Earlier she did theatrical sets in New York City.
Gale Wagner
feels his calling as a maker was a gift at birth, followed by the good fortune
of living a life full of passion for creating stuff to be shared with others.
His sculptures have been many – large & small, heavy & light, solid
& hollow. Pure joy in the creative process, coupled with love and respect
for all materials used – steel, paper, glass, stainless, copper, bronze, stone,
wood, rubber, air, space – always at play
with gravity & balance. The hope is that the viewer will feel something.
John Wehrle has had an extensive career creating site-specific
artworks for public spaces. A multi-disciplinary artist, John has fabricated
elaborate installation works combining text, painting, photography, ceramic
tile or relief sculpture for libraries, banks, buildings, and freeway walls.
His critically acclaimed work includes monumental paintings for the de Young Museum, the Los Angeles Olympics
and Berkeley Transit Plaza. “I am an artist who is most comfortable making large scale narrative
paintings in unsuspected places. I put myself in the Western Tradition of
Tiepolo, Andrea Pozzo, Breughel, Church, Eakins, the anonymous panoramic painters
of the 19thcentury, Hopper and the LA Fine Arts Squad. I like a work
that has a sense of mystery, ambiguity. If there is a political message to my
work it is probably closest to an anarchist with OCD. WYSIWYG.
