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Organic Imagery in August ExhibitionSpontaneous and whimsical artists, Eric Helsley and Carol Paquet, enliven Esteban Sabar Gallery with their work from August 4th to August 28th, 2006. Reception: Friday, August 4th, from 5pm to 9pm., in concurrence with Oakland's First Friday Art Walk. Catching Ripples: Paintings and Sculpture by Eric HelsleyA sense of fun abounds in emerging artist Eric Helsley’s paintings and sculptures, through which he happily marries graffiti sensibility with cartoon-like colors to create branching, improvisational imagery. Pursuing, as he puts it, “aesthetics that might be embraced by a utopian culture in the future,” Helsley ad-libs whimsical but delicate imagery that touches on art nouveau, street graffiti and tribal art through paintings and sculptures that pop with color through the use of acrylic, enamel, resin, spray paint and other media. Helsley’s depictions of organic branching and interconnectedness are seen on canvases depicting brains, branching trees and even a prenatal portrait of his son as a fetus growing in a pink and red bed of branching capillaries. By incorporating painted sculptures of plaster and clay into his repertoire, most notably an aquatic assembly of cartoonlike corral, octo-babies and other pelagic playfellows, Helsley unleashes a 3-D offshoot of his furcating imagery. More examples of Eric Helsley's work.
Present Memories: Paintings by Carol PaquetAn improvisational master of painted canvas, Carol Paquet captures the feeling of specific seasons and places through the seemingly impulsive use of washy layers, textures and almost folksy floral and woodland motifs in oil paints on canvas. While her work can be seen as landscapes through their familiar representation of trees, grassy planes or flowers, her unexpected use of patterns, colors, textures and composition take her work from the comfortably pastoral to edgier realms of human experience of nature. Geometric and floral patterns are placed out of context, as are layers of paint create textile-like patterning, providing a synthetic, unnatural geometry that contrasts to nature’s typical meanderings. Paquet’s improvisational painting process allows her to imply a countryside while more clearly capturing our subjective experience of those bucolic places. More examples of Carol Paquet's work Artists on exhibition at the Esteban Sabar Gallery include Sue Averell, Bethany Ayres, Rocky Baird, Nancy Ballard, Trish Booth, Mario Chiodo, Guy Colwell, Orion Fredericks, Eric Helsley, Albert Hwang, Wendell Jones, Zack Jones, John Kinstler, Douglas Light, Donna Mendes, Marty McCorkle, Kenney Mencher, Carol Paquet, Tim Phelan, Dana Porteos, Diego Rios, Erik Rogers, Bernadette Sale and Kevin Slagle. |
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