DANAE MATTES: WETLANDS
STEPHEN DE STAEBLER: CONTINUITY
PERMUTATIONS FROM NATURE’S PERIMETER: RADIUS 2009
Members-only wine reception, Thursday June 18, 2009, 6-7 p.m.
Public preview, Thursday, June 18, 2009, 7-8 p.m.
  
    

		PALO ALTO, CA – Opening June 18, 2009, at the Palo Alto Art Center, three summer exhibitions are broadly connected in their unique material presence and relationship to nature. The public is invited to an exhibition preview on Thursday, June 18, 2009, from 7- 8 p.m.  In PERMUTATIONS FROM NATURE’S PERIMETER: RADIUS 2009, Juror Karen Kienzle, Director of the Palo Alto Art Center, has identified seven regional artists who explore the phenomenon of transformation against the backdrop of nature: Tracy Burk, Sukey Bryan, Dana Harel, Amy Hibbs, Ulla de Larios, Catie O’Leary and Sarah Ratchye.
Dana Harel, Crocodylus Niloticus, 2008, pencil on paper, 46 x 62”, Courtesy of the Artist and Frey Norris Gallery, San Francisco

    
Through their own individual approaches, Amy Hibbs, Catie O’Leary, and Sukey Bryan investigate ways the natural world has changed through the influence or intervention of humankind. Sukey Bryan’s recent paintings were inspired by a residency in Denali National Park and Preserve in which she saw the impact of climate change in robust water flows created from melting glaciers. Amy Hibb’s quirkily beautiful landscape paintings feature unexpected evidence of a human presence. In Catie O’Leary’s intricate collages, the natural elements of foliage and clouds are juxtaposed with Classical man-made architectural constructions in unique compositions that encourage us to see space in a new way. In contrast, Dana Harel’s masterful drawings imagine a fantastical union of the human and animal world.

Sarah Ratchye and Tracy Burk explore intersections between this world and the next. Tracy Burk uses insects as a point of departure to create cast metal sculptures that appear at once of this world, but with their unexpected shapes and undecipherable symbols, decidedly otherworldly. In her compelling small scale drawings and paintings, Sarah Ratchye uses space travel as a potent symbol for spiritual ascension. Ulla de Larios employs natural materials in her evocative textile installation to explore the phenomenon of political transformation and healing. EXHIBITION SUPPORT: The exhibition RADIUS 2009 has received special support from University Art in Palo Alto and the Palo Alto Weekly.
     
    


Danae Mattes, Wetlands II, 2008, Clay and pigment on canvas, 78 x 66”, Courtesy of the Artist

DANAE MATTES: WETLANDS premiers new paintings by the Berkeley artist. Unique in their surface veneers of clay and pigment on canvas, her works evoke poetic atmospheric conditions and striking geologic formations. Viewers are invited to visit the exhibition time and again throughout the summer to witness the forces of permeability in the artist’s site-specific work “Evaporation Pool.” The piece will evolve from a lustrous and fluid sacred circle of poured and manipulated clay into a slaked, sculptural object.


Stephen De Staebler, Leg with Green Path, 1996-1998, Fired clay, 29 ½ x 13 x 13”, Collection of GB Carson, Berkeley

STEPHEN DE STAEBLER: CONTINUITY pays tribute to the leading Americansculptor and acknowledged master in the California clay movement. Theeight sculptures in the exhibition, 1975-2008, bear the tension of dualand contradictory associations: as ancient relics and contemporaryfiguration and as body and landscape. They combine the earthly andspiritual, as well as the fragile and resilient. The exhibition STEPHENDE STAEBLER: CONTINUITY is presented in anticipation of the artist’sretrospective at the San Jose Museum of Art.

For further information:
Contact: Signe Mayfield, Curator 650-329-2179
E-mail: artcenter@cityofpaloalto.org
Website: www.cityofpaloalto.org/artcenter

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PUBLIC PROGRAMS- FREE TO THE PUBLIC- Advanced Registration is advised.
Phone: (650) 329-2366
E-mail: artcenter@cityofpaloalto.org

Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 7:30-9 p.m., Free to the public
“What Degas and Monet Saw”
Combining historical documentation with medical research, Stanford Ophthalmologist and art enthusiast Dr. Michael Marmor has computerized images of famous artworks by Monet and Degas to replicate the way the artists saw their creations through their retinal disease.

Thursday, July 30, 6-8:30 p.m., Free to the public
“The Local Gallery Landscape”
A lively panel discussion features representatives from galleries in the Palo Alto region. Thursday, August 6, 6-8 p.m.,

“Radius 2009 Artists in Dialogue”
Join the Radius 2009 artists in a gallery walkthrough.

FREE DOCENT TOURS
Art Dialogues are scheduled on Saturdays at 2 p.m.
Call (650) 329-2366 for confirmation.