Phyllis Shafer: Stremmel Gallery

Stremmel Gallery
1400 South Virginia Street
Reno

Artist Reception: Thursday, October 20, 5:30 - 7:30pm

Cerulean Days, an exhibition of recent paintings by Phyllis Shafer, will open at Stremmel Gallery in Reno on Thursday, October 20th and run through Saturday, November 19th. The gallery will host a reception for the artist on Thursday, October 20, 5:30 - 7:30pm.

For the past two years, Phyllis Shafer has explored, through plein air painting, the landscape of northern Nevada. From the expansive, sagebrush-filled tablelands of the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge and the Smoke Creek desert to the lush, alpine beauty of the Ruby Mountains and the Snake Range, Phyllis Shafer's paintings celebrate the color, forms, and innate rhythms unique to the Great Basin. This series of paintings continues to explore the relationship between the intimate details of foreground flora and the calming allure of deep space.

For more information, please go to the artist's website at: www.phyllisshafer.com

[image of Lamoille Canyon Beaver Pond oil painting from the artist's website, text from the artist and gallery's press information]

Christiansen and Nelson at Stremmel Gallery

Stremmel Gallery
1400 South Virginia Street
Reno

Reception for the Artists: Thursday, September 8, 5:30-7:30pm

Stremmel Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of recent painting and sculpture by John Randall Nelson and Bryan Christiansen. The exhibition opens with a reception for the artists on Thursday, September 8 from 5:30 - 7:30pm and will remain in the gallery through October 8, 2011.

John Randall Nelson emerged in the mid-’90s as a painter and sculptor known for taking simple, bold, instantly recognizable images of everyday symbols and imbuing them with a sense of theatre. Embracing the concept of artist as storyteller, Nelson is a chronicler of contemporary culture, his symbolic amalgamations forming an intuitive sense of the besieged, “over communicated, how-to” society in which we live. His paintings often consist of a central image superimposed over a collage of symbols and text (anything from art criticism to nursery rhymes). Daily life is represented through select bits and pieces carefully plucked, placed, layered, painted, sanded and repainted. Nelson’s persistent, almost obsessive editing and rearrangement of these pieces allow viewers to uncover the grammar of his private language. Through the constant reworking of the surface and the rearranging of form, the process of discovery and creation comes to the forefront of Nelson’s canvases. His paintings are narrative in two ways: They encourage viewers to invent their own stories based on the images and messages used, but they also present the “story” of their own creation, inviting the experience of a restless and somewhat anxious journey of the art-making process.

Bryan Christiansen creates life-sized contemporary sculpture that challenges conventional notions of rural life, home, the rituals of the hunting tradition, and the innocence of childhood. Discarded household furniture found in neglected urban areas becomes assemblage that stands in for the trophies, antler mounts, and pelts often prized by hunters. Christiansen's work recalls the gritty, discarded object sculpture of 1950s assemblage artists Bruce Conner and Ed Kienholz. However, unlike these artists interested in probing the passage of time, death, and decay,
Christiansen reconstructs exquisitely crafted works that feature exposed hand-stitchery and floral fabrics. This process of assembling has more to do with making sense of life than decoding death. Christiansen's sculptures take the form of trophies, physical triumphs of the present over the past and the strength to confront some of life's most challenging contradictions. Raised in a small log cabin in the Black Hills of South Dakota, his childhood was influenced by activities associated with rustic, agrarian living: absorbing nature, communing with wildlife, and learning to hunt. These activities, alongside the turbulent and complex development of his family's domestic life, are what led Christiansen to art as a way of wrestling with the conflicting realities of his past.

To set up a private tour of the gallery and works by the artists, please call Stremmel Gallery 775.786.0558 or visit www.stremmelgallery.com. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9am - 5:30pm, and Saturday, 10am - 3pm.

[text, images from the gallery's press release]

New Ground at Stremmel Gallery

December 2 – 31,
Reception: Thursday, Dec. 2, 5:30 – 7:30 pm.
Open to the public.

Stremmel Gallery
1400 South Virginia Street
Reno

Len Chmiel has been described as an “iconoclast” whose paintings have been praised by critics as "compelling" and “deft responses to intimate vignettes.” His rich use of pigment in the shadows of his subject matter display an acute attention to color and movement released through forms. In his studio in western Colorado, Chmiel works to capture the beauty of the outdoors, where he frequently hunts and gardens.

Montana painter Dale Livezey is a poet of dusk and daybreak, working exclusively in oils. He has always been drawn to swiftly changing light and the intensities of color inspired by early morning or afternoon radiance. Livezey’s paintings speak directly to the memories of places and the feelings that these particular places evoke. His works have appeared on several book covers, including A.B.
Guthrie's The Big Sky.

Charles Reid is an international artist, teacher and author known for his beautiful, clean use of color and ability to capture light. His water colors and oils expresses freshness and spontaneity, immediately grabbing the senses and allowing entry into charming worlds inspired by the allure of Connecticut living.

Energized by the vibrant hills, valleys and mountains of southern California, James Shay evokes western American landscapes using simple shapes, forms and strong color, representing something of the sensuality within our natural world. He layers and scrapes the surfaces of the work to achieve a sense of time's passage with ample visual brilliance.

[Text and graphic from gallery press mailing. Click on image to enlarge.]

Gaylen Hansen: Paintings From the Palouse & Larry Williamson: New Works

Gaylen Hansen: Paintings From the Palouse &
Larry Williamson: New Works

Opening Reception: Thursday, October 21|5:30-7:30pm

Stremmel Gallery
1400 South Virginia Street
Reno

Stremmel Gallery: Gaylen Hansen & Larry Williamson

"Living in Eastern Washington, 89-year-old Gaylen Hansen has been transforming the gentle landscape of the Palouse into tall tales and mythical quests through narrative painting for the last forty years. Using landscapes, animals, insects, and his alter ego,"the Kernal", Hansen depicts a world that is “variously mysterious, dangerous, surprising and comical”... Nevada based sculptor, Larry Williamson, draws inspiration from the desert landscape that has surrounded him his whole life, carving and creating extraordinary images out of aged pieces of wood that he finds lying on the floor of the Great Basin. His sculptures range from small to life-sized, demonstrating the natural evolution of images from his mind and materials."

Through November 18

[Text and graphics from Stremmel Gallery website.]

Perspectives 2010

[Graphic from Stremmel Gallery mailing. Click on image to enlarge.]

Gee's Bend Quilts

Stremmel Gallery
1400 South Virginia Street
Reno, Nevada 89502

February 11- March 13
Gee’s Bend + John Randall Nelson | American Curios

Reception: Thursday, February 11, 5:30 – 7:30 pm.

Praised by the New York Times as “some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced,” the abstract quilts from the tiny, isolated African-American community of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, prompted a rethinking of commonly accepted artistic categories. Throughout much of the twentieth century, making quilts was considered a domestic responsibility for the African-American women in Gee’s Bend, an area of Rehoboth and Boykin, Alabama. As young girls, many of the women trained or apprenticed in their craft with their mothers, female relatives, or friends. The town’s women developed a distinctive, bold, and sophisticated quilting style based on traditional American (and African American) quilts, but with a geometric simplicity reminiscent of Amish quilts and modern art. In 1937 and '38, the federal government commissioned two series of photographs of Gee's Bend. The images have since become some of the most famous images of Depression-era American life.

This exhibition of the Gee’s Bend quilts is in correlation with the exhibition at the Nevada Museum of Art, which will be on display February 6- April 11.

Living in Tempe Arizona, John Randall Nelson has synthesized his illustration and sculptural experience into a unique body of work that combines painting, drawing, video, sculpture, and text. He is known for taking simple, yet bold, instantly recognized images of everyday symbols that function like words in a sentence. By manipulating the relationship between form and symbolism, Nelson encourages viewers to create connections, to assert their own ideas and interpretations. He emphasizes primitive and simplified images, exploring the art historical styles of imagism, tribal and folk art.

[Text from Gallery press release. Graphic from Google image search for 'Gee's Bend quilts.']

A Full Backyard at Stremmel Gallery

Stremmel Gallery
1400 South Virginia Street
Reno, Nevada 89502

Robert Brady
“A Full Backyard”
May 14 - June 6
Reception: Thursday, May 14 5:30-7:30 pm

"Robert Brady’s exhibition of new emblematic sculptures and paintings ... are observations from his personal influences of architecture, Native American crafts, tribal and oceanic art, and the human figure."

[Text from Stremmel press release. Graphic: screengrab from Stemmel website.]

Rock Paper Scissors

Stremmel Gallery
Gallery hours: Monday through Friday | 9:00 am — 5:30 pm,
Saturday | 10 am — 3 pm.

tel: (775) 786-0558

more

[click on image to enlarge. graphic from Stremmel Web site.]

Stremmel: Arnoldi + Berry

Stremmel Gallery
1400 South Virginia Street
Reno, Nevada 89502

Gallery hours:
M-F 9 am - 5:30 pm
Sat 10 am -3 pm

Charles Arnoldi + Roger Berry

"Charles Arnoldi's paintings are carefully balanced in a harmonious colorful interplay of repeated abstract geometrical forms. Born in 1946 in Dayton, OH, Arnoldi lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. A recipient of frequent honors, including two Artist Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and the "Maestro Fellowship" from the California Arts Council, he has been showcased in numerous solo exhibitions, including most recently at the Charles Cowles Gallery, NY and the Busan Metropolitan Art Museum, Busan, Korea. His artwork can be found in various museum collections including the Art Institute of Chicago, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum of Modern Art and San Francisco Museum of Art.

Northern California artist Roger Berry creates metal sculptures whose arching shapes seem to suggest loosely intertwined knots. Looped forms twist around and curve back upon themselves in gracefully choreographed movement. Born in Chico, CA in 1950, Berry received his degree in art from Raymond College, University of the Pacific in 1972. He has had a large number of works purchased for public art installations throughout the country."

[announcement from gallery press release. Click on image to enlarge.]