Thursday, March 28, 2013

Gray Loft Gallery - Rock Wall Wine Pour



Join us on Saturday, March 30, 2013 
for a tasting of Rock Wall Wine Company's current releases at the Gray Loft Gallery.

The Gallery will be open from 1 to 5

and the tasting will be from 3 to 5

Come by to see the excellent current show 
"The Big Painting Show - Layers of Abstraction
and enjoy a taste or two of Rock Wall Wine! 



Other updates: the next 2nd Friday artist reception will take place April 12 from 6 - 9 pm. We are delighted to present Deja 2, Jingletown's own jazz duo Cathi Walkup and Jon Zax. They will be performing during the reception.

The gallery is delighted to be participating in Slow Art Day on April 27,
 when people are encouraged to discover the joy of looking at and loving art. Please stop by and take in the show slowly. If you are interested in participating, please sign up on the Slow Art Day website - or just stop by!  Artists in the show will be there to discuss their work with you.



 Featuring:
The Gray Loft Gallery website is now online!!


~
Gray Loft Gallery
2889 Ford Street, #32
Oakland, CA 94601
510-499-3445
contact Gray Loft Gallery

~

The Big Painting Show articles

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Gray Loft Gallery ~ The Big Painting Show

Celebrating our one-year anniversary!

Gray Loft Gallery
presents

This exhibition features large scale paintings by 8 established Bay Area abstract artists.  The use of color, shape, form and imagery has created a powerful and expressive show.  

March 8 - May 10, 2013
 
Artists’ reception: 2nd Friday, March 8, 6 – 9 pm

Gallery Hours: Saturdays 1:00 - 5:00 pm
Sundays by appointment

Additional receptions:
2nd Friday reception: April 12, 6 – 9 pm
Closing reception: 2nd Friday, May 10, 6 – 9 pm

2889 Ford Street, third floor, Oakland


Rick Arnitz "Melon Squared"


Rick Arnitz's recent work is involved with process/ imagery that conveys an 'American' style/identity. “He has long worked like a formalist and thought like a political cartoonist, an improbable combination even in the creative melee of contemporary art. His primary tools - paint rollers - limit his moves considerably, but he has developed a prodigious dexterity with them regardless. They keep picture space shallow, if not entirely flat, and lend themselves to repetitive marking”.
Kenneth Baker, SF Chronicle, 2010. 


Mark Ashworth
"Look What Freddy Did"



Starting with a random placement of shapes just like a toss of the dice, Ashworth proceeds to formalize his compositions with line and color, relying on spontaneity and intuition.  His inspiration comes from various sources:  Patterns and symbols of Celtic culture. Nature, where inspiration comes from leaf patterns, rings of a tree and ripple of light on water. The stratum of desert mountains.  Treasurers revealed at an archeological dig as layer of dirt and rock are removed. 

Suzy Barnard  "Pistachio Float"

Industrial yet romantic, large cargo ships seen from far away are imbued with poetry. While the shipping industry is heavily laden with associations of environmental disaster, pollution, and globalization, the ships themselves are symbols of freedom and new horizons. From her studio, Barnard feels that the ships are formidable, proud and beautiful, and they keep appearing and disappearing in new ways that stretch my way of seeing. She drags and scrapes the color with broad strokes, delving deeper with paint into the emotional seascape that presents itself every day, as the vessels traverse the scene, or rest for a while at anchor until their next adventure.

Jamie Brunson  "Arcadia"

The Veil Paintings: works with a mixture of oil paint, alkyd medium and refined beeswax on canvas stretched over panels, building up thin layers of fluid paint drawn into fluid paint. The painting process demands attentive consciousness and staying present with the materials, reflecting Brunson’s engagement with Kundalini meditation practice, which has similarly demands.  As with meditation, the act of painting creates a sense of surrender and absolute union with the situation as it unfolds.  For Brunson, these paintings rely on their capacity to evoke sensations of expansion and engagement in the people who view them.

Betty Jo Costanzo
"Lake Chelan #4"


Movement is the underlying theme in her work. Over the years, and around the world, Costanzo has recorded and collected videos and soundSCAPEs that capture the arresting passage of place and time. When she is painting, she wants to give life to that subtle motion.  By projecting her TimeSCAPE videos while painting a subject, she is able to connect again to the location and time where the subject first had all of her senses engaged. Inside this enhanced painting process, the motions of her own body become connected to those distant senses.  She knows when a painting is finished when shifting just above its surface, the fluid grace she found in nature is visible.

Carol Lefkowitz "Untitled #163"

Her paintings are about the activity of painting and what is hauled up in its process – transparency, opacity, rhythm, stillness, pattern, light, randomness, depth, flatness, immersion and submersion.  They are also about time, accumulation, dredging and scraping.  Scouring for something unnamed, unfamiliar and yet ultimately and intuitively complete.  Lefkowitz’s desire as a painter is to investigate an emotional depth and personal perspective that is a window into herself and at the same time a reflection of the world outside of me.  On a deeper level, this work is a meditation on painting, and her evolution and commitment as a painter.

Simone Simon 
"They Seeded the Clouds With Unconscious Intent"


When she begins to paint, Simon starts from a non-representational place, and bring sensation into form. She plays with phenomenon that exist beyond the normal organization of perception and explores the matrix that binds forces and systems of energy together. Pouring paint in many different directions on the canvas layers impressions on top of each other. Decisions to proceed occur both cognitively and outside the normal realm of the senses. The luminosity of the paint brings attention to other dimensional aspects, and makes the unseen, seen.

June Yokell
"Voyage to Antiquity"


June Yokell's current paintings are influenced by specific aspects of nature, particularly by trees and water; by the movement of, by light on, by shadows and reflections, by the power of, by fluidity, or by calming abilities.  She is interested in how paint is used and the tension of control and chaos that creates a coalition between representation and abstraction. 


2nd Fridays in Jingletown!

Be sure to visit all the galleries in Jingletown during the next
2nd Friday on March 8 from 6 to 9 pm.

 
Please check websites of each venue for gallery hours and participation.
Jingletown is a vibrant arts community nestled in a diverse neighborhood adjacent to the Oakland and Alameda Estuary.

Visit the Jingletown 
website for more information about galleries and artists in the community and for directions.

Check out the recent article about 2nd Fridays in 
Oakland Local
.
 Jingletown:
Art on the edge of Oakland
Pin-up photo boxes by Mariah Carle
About the Gray Loft Gallery
 
The gallery acknowledges the achievements of emerging and established artists - with an emphasis on those who live and work in the Bay Area - in a non-traditional art space.  The mission of the gallery is to provide exhibition opportunities for artists in a setting that is an alternative to the traditional gallery model.

The Gray Loft Gallery is a unique venue located on the 3rd floor of one of Oakland’s oldest artists’ work/live warehouses in the historic artist district Jingletown.
The gallery was founded in 2012 by Jan Watten.

We rely on the assistance of a group of friends and artists in the Jingletown community and beyond, with special acknowledgements going to the following:
Styrous, blog keeper and photographer
Martin Sweet, gallery builder extraordinaire
Betty Jo Costanzo
Karyn Yandow and all the Ford Street Women
Perry Bleeker Design
Lotus Color Printing
Rock Wall Winery
Urban Legend Winery
And all the art lovers who come to the shows and support our gallery!

Thank you!