Mara Manning

Mara Manning

Mara Manning - March 2018

Telluride HQ Gallery

"My work is about a sense of place, a vague memory of being there. These landscapes and cityscapes are not windows like a traditional landscape format. Rather, I am instead exploring the space as we pass through it. Whether driving by in a car or moving in other forms of transportation we experience our environment in momentary glimpses. Parts of these remain in our subconscious as memories and images. They are flattened and stacked. In my paintings I find myself gravitating to a simple house shape as my subject matter. Houses, farm buildings and warehouses have always sparked my storytelling imagination. I see personalities, expressions, and faces in buildings that I take photos of and record in sketchbooks. By layering the buildings or using the shape individually I am able to conjure a feeling of place for me and the viewer. We may not see the same place in the piece but it brings about an immediate reaction, often a “naming” of where the scene is located.

I am painting with wax media because it allows me to explore a richness in layers, color and textures using a variety of tools and handmade templates. I have almost left my brushes behind, gravitating toward palette knives and other devices that let me layer, scrape and draw on the surface. I like to excavate into the painting revealing parts of previous layers. The wax medium allows me explore this type of versatility on the birch panels. My process explores the painting surface as I expose or mask particular layers and colors. I look to the history of art to inform my color schemes, specifically the Dutch Baroque period. I love the richness and saturation found in works from that era. As I settle on a color scheme for the pieces I allow composition and mood to drive the painting. I work using photos as inspiration. The loose grid I begin with provides a landscape in which I can start to nestle, isolate or crowd together the buildings, roads and bridges. Windows, lines, textural marks are added near the end of the process. Each layer of cold wax and oil is fused using a low temp heat gun. Fine lines are made with oil pastel. In the final stages of the pieces I allow them to cure and then burnish the wax to create a soft luster on the surface where it is the thickest."

Mara is a UW Milwaukee graduate with a BFA in Painting & Drawing. She earned her teaching certificate as an Art Educator from UW-Green Bay and received a Master of Arts in Education from Lesley University. Some of her early influences as an artist included instruction and vision from Leslie Vansen, Adolph Rosenblatt, Tom Uttecht, Bill Williams, and Laurence Rathsack (Instructors at UW-Milwaukee).

VISIT maramanningstudio.com TO LEARN MORE. 

Nancy B. Frank

Nancy B. Frank

"What amazes me most about the partnership with a horse is that they allow us on their backs, but that is exactly what creates the tension in my paintings; the partnership between equine and human.  The images are larger than life yet intimate, and hopefully, capture the beauty and power and grace of the horse, yet the horses are bitted and bound with reins.  The human factor is always present, but never within the frame except for perhaps a suggestion. It is the special agreement and the spirit of both which make the paintings shine with light and life."

Lara Branca

Lara Branca

Lara Branca is creating a series of abstract expressionist paintings focusing on the equine form. The work focuses on the feeling of the horse's form in movement, in life. The paintings have rhythmic gesture as a foundation. The work references natural light, settings, and color but connect with the subconscious mind. They evoke emotion, motion and empathy. "The paintings focus on the idea of the horses moving in the landscape, seen through my feeling for the animals and their environment, which is a product of my experiences with them on the ground."

Flair Robinson

Flair Robinson

Be Unbroken is Flair Robinson's newest large-scale installation highlighting the healing power of the natural world. "Many people are in a state where the world feels broken. When we separate ourselves from nature, we are not at our best. Being out there in it is being whole." Robinson's imagery, colors, and environment remind us not only of our universal place, but also the confluence of the earthly and the eternal. A vibrant orange coyote anchors the installation as the guardian and harbinger. The cleansing rain, the attentive moon, the persisting waterfall, and other symbolic images unify to create an atmosphere both grounding and mystical. Although a personal journey for the artist, Be Unbroken carries a resonant and timely message.

Andrea Martens

Andrea Martens

Andrea Martens is a visual artist focused in mixed media printmaking, living and working in Durango, Colorado. In addition to creating in the studio, she teaches art at Fort Lewis College and at the University of Maine at Augusta’s Distance Education Program. Andrea received her MFA in Printmaking from Colorado State University and received her Post-Baccalaureate Certificate from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Virginia Tech with minors in art and biology.  In her art, she uses a combination of materials and processes to examine the human/animal relationship, as well as its connection to our environment in contemporary industrial society. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. 

Apoc

Apoc

Telluride Arts’ HQ gallery in Telluride, Colorado presents work by Patrick E. Felsenthal, a writer, filmmaker, musician, graphic designer and artist. He releases music best described as art rap under the name Apoc and creates art and design pieces as PFels. On October 5th he will be launching a show at the Telluride Arts HQ Gallery that incorporates both of these projects. Apoc’s newest music video, Hurricane Goddamn! will be premiered in the US during the October 5th Art Walk. Props, costumes, and storyboards from the production will be on display throughout the exhibition. Also being featured will be Optalgia, a mixed-media body of artwork by Pfels. The Art Walk opening reception will be held Thursday, October 5, 5-8 p.m.

Margaret Rinkevich

Margaret Rinkevich

Margaret’s work develops intuitively.  It is composed of a confluence of multiple sensations drawn from her own experiential landscape.  There is an all-consuming mental grind in the creative process, and her objective is to achieve visually arresting images.  The goal in this series is to make the apparently simple relationships of form and color charged with as much force, feeling and meaning as possible.

Micheline Klagsbrun

Micheline Klagsbrun

On a simple level, Micheline Klagsbrun began with the intention to display side-by-side work done in her East Coast studio with work done here in Telluride. She has always been interested in the sense of place in art. At a deeper level, Klagsbrun is also fascinated by the parallels that can be found between cultures widely separated by time and geography.

Dave Pressler

Dave Pressler

In our world that grows ever smaller, as the wonders of nature and the universe become more commonplace due to digital photography and affordable travel, the idea of the flawed explorer who travels the expanse of the mysterious world before him, yet never observes the amazing creatures around him—only focusing on “What else is out there? What am I missing?”—is a humorous observation on our digital lives. Dave Pressler’s exhibit, “Exploring Imaginary Worlds” focuses on these concepts.

Dabbs Anderson

Dabbs Anderson

“There is an undeniable sense of danger and power in using fire to create a drawing; and there lies a grotesque, but grounding, beauty in using bacon to create a painting. Perhaps the combination of the two is American.” Anderson is interested in the way environments and their people shape how one interprets their experiences. Oscillating between energetic moments of inspiration and long periods of study and focus is essential to Anderson’s practice. Sketches and drawings from travels formed with careful but emotional mark making weave a history of journey among the creatures.

Christopher Beaver

Christopher Beaver

The nature of this show has evolved and changed as the work emerged. What was once a wildly conceptual installation has transformed into a simple statement of Beaver’s inner self. Never being given the opportunity to explore art as a path in life, this creative outlet has become a way for Beaver to express different aspects of himself. This body of work is a genuine exposure and emergence. While the mediums vary throughout the show, they each reflect an uncharted territory of, what Beaver describes as, his “inner sanctuary.” The things that Beaver finds most sacred in life and the marriage of those beliefs are the guiding influence in all of the work. 

Betsy Chaffin

Betsy Chaffin

Next Move is inspired by an Albert Einstein quote, “Life is like a bicycle.  To keep your balance you must keep moving.”  This work demonstrates some of my “moving”--- recent visual exploration to continue developing my vocabulary and sensibility.  Abstracted shapes mingle with more figurative elements and old ideas and concerns struggle to find new expressions. The paintings are metaphors for past experiences and memory.

Alyce Levy

Alyce Levy

Alyce Levy is a graphic designer, and creator of her line, Modern Slice. Modern Slice art pieces have a mid century soul. They begin with a single piece of perfectly imperfect wood with rings and whorls that tell us a story of time and life, visual respresentations of who an individual is in strong, decisive lines and colors working together with a message to send, a song to sing, an all day long smile in the heart, and as unique as every living creature or thought on this planet.

Rebecca Harrell

Rebecca Harrell

Rebecca Harrell’s work is rooted in an interest in evolving landscapes, human interventions with the natural world, and geologic formations. She is interested in the contrast between slowly evolving natural forms and rapidly expanding, urban settings. The result is a visual dialog around scale, source imagery and space. Harrell exaggerates that tension through material and formal choices.

Adam Carlos & Colleen Thompson

Adam Carlos & Colleen Thompson

March 1, 2017 - May 30, 2017

Telluride Arts HQ Gallery

Telluride Arts’ HQ gallery in Telluride, Colorado presents, “Petal and Pencil,” an exhibit by local artist Adam Carlos accompanied by the jewelry of Colleen Thompson. The show opens March 2 and runs through May 2017. The Art Walk opening reception will be held Thursday, March 2, 5-8 p.m.  

When one thinks of flowers, almost immediately their thoughts turn to a particular color of their favorite flower. For Adam Carlos, any mention of a the word “flower” conjures up the fields of springtime yellow daffodils left behind in Tennessee before his move to Telluride. For Adam, daffodils embody not only the first signs of spring after a long winter, but the memory left behind of past generations. One can find a cluster of daffodils, dig them up, and separate the bulbs to replant. This original flowers planted years ago will often multiply to produce a hundred new individual flowers. Growing up among the fertile soils of Tennessee, Adam Carlos always had a love of flowers that culminated from an early separation of a cluster of daffodil bulbs that had once resided on his great grandfather's farm. When one thinks of flowers, almost immediately their thoughts turn to a particular color of their favorite flower. For Adam Carlos, any mention of a the word “flower” conjures up the fields of springtime yellow daffodils left behind in Tennessee before his move to Telluride. From that original cluster, a hundred or so bulbs lined the driveway of Adam's childhood home every spring of his youth.  Bulbs were divided to form the backdrop of the flowerbeds of Adam's later homes, and there are already plans to pass along daffodil bulbs to his own children. 

This new series of works is an attempt to break away from the simple idea that the beauty of a flower is color alone. S Hopefully, simple black and white studies of form will stimulate memories and take an individual back to a single moment in time when they were engulfed in a single bloom or bouquet. 

For last 20 years Adam W. Carlos has devoted the majority of his time to promoting an art form that has nearly become extinct through his portraiture and landscape work. Few artists spend the painstaking amount of time to produce large realistic works in graphite pencil as Adam does. He has instilled in himself an awareness of vision that could most simply be described as paying attention - specifically to beauty, uniqueness, community and family.  Adam's vision, attention to detail, and his patience provide a strong backbone to his artistic methods, enabling him to create stunning portraits that capture the true character and personalities of his subjects. Adam's studio and gallery, Adam W. Carlos Fine Art, offers exclusive graphite pencil portraiture in heart of the Mountain Village core. His painstaking dedication to accuracy makes Adam's portraits, landscape and equestrian drawings stand out.

Additionally, Colleen Thompson will be displaying her newest series of artisan jewelry in Gallery 81435. Colleen Thompson is an easily inspired Telluride local who creates jewelry best described as "earthy elements combined with Southwest style." There is so much magic and possibility found in the San Juan Mountains— Colleen harnesses this magic into each handmade piece. In 2016 Colleen was awarded a grant by Telluride Arts District to create a collection of sterling silver jewelry using precious metal clay. She is thrilled to share this collection with the Telluride community at this month’s Art Walk. Special thanks to Christopher Beaver, her mentor, and Telluride Arts District.

The show runs through May 2017 at Telluride Arts HQ Gallery, located at 135 W Pacific in Telluride, Colorado. Open daily from 12-6pm or by appointment. 

Link to Artist Page

Karen Wippich

Karen Wippich

March 1, 2017 - May 30, 2017

I have often heard that an artist has to have a good story to go with their work. My paintings tell their own story. They are rich in history. Layers of images. Every viewer sees something, their own story, a relative, a friend and that is what I think attracts them to my paintings. If someone asks me what one of my paintings is about, I say, “you tell me”. When I paint I feel alive and free. For a few hours nothing else matters. My hope is that my paintings can make the viewer feel that way too, if even for a moment.

Elisa Gomez

Elisa Gomez

February 1, 2017 - February 28, 2017

This series of paintings is a compilation of pieces done by the artist while driving around the Western US in her Chevy Astro Van, combined with pieces done in her Salt Lake City studio at the culmination of her trip. Gomez’s visual journal and sketchbook explode with ideas she captured on her journey through nature – from striking Natural Parks and Forests, to the serenity of the ocean. Each painting is wrought with vivid colors, deep textures, and gestural movements, as this is the vocabulary built from experiences and expressions of what she observed. Living in the mountains, smelling the pine trees each morning, or waking up to a salty breeze; Each painting is a product of the studies Gomez had done and continues to explore in her evolution as an artist.

Chris Roberts - Antieau

Chris Roberts - Antieau

February 1, 2017 - February 28, 2017

The colorful, humorous, and hopeful fabric works of New Orleans artist Chris Roberts-Antieau are coming to the Telluride Arts District for Mardi Gras season. Antieau’s subject matter ranges from joyfully candid cultural commentary depicting unbelievable true stories (such as James Brown’s Funeral: And The Tragic Aftermath) to more personal reflections on nature, perception, reality and truth. Antieau further explores her interests through sculpture and installation, creating elaborate dollhouses of famous murder scenes and elegant gowns embroidered with birds of prey eviscerating small animals. 

Stephanie Morgan Rogers

Stephanie Morgan Rogers

Songline, named appropriately for the mythological Aboriginal calling to follow a mysterious dream track, is a show about Stephanie’s own creative walkabout. “I have embarked on a journey into my own art process and have created imagery that illustrates some significant discoveries along the way.” This allegorical body of work is the continuation of an ongoing theme centered on relationships between land, humans, animals and the great unknown.   

Emily Palmquist

Emily Palmquist

November 30, 2016 - January 31, 2017

Emily Palmquist’s newest series is composed of those very bones, an intimate observation of the mesa she has inhabited for the passing of nearly three winters. The seasons transform with the interchange of birds and wildflowers, the various state and movement of water, a hen’s first egg and her last feather. Winter leaves the fence lines buried up to their ears slowly emerging with spring. Summer’s leaves turn brown and dry just in time for the winds of fall to blow them bare. The days are stitched together with tracks in the snow, rain clouds pulling low against the valley, and another dead vole at my threshold.