Show runs through June 20th, 2009
Electric, synaptic and mysterious, painter Philippe Janssens and sculptor-jeweler Victoria Skirpa continue to refine the evolution of imagination and adornment. Philippe Janssens' paintings are channeled directly from his spirit and imagination. He gives form to these colorful and odd-shaped beings. They leave you intrigued and wondering, what multidimensional universe have they evolved from? What universe do we step into as we look upon them?
Victoria Skirpa draws from living forms to create her sculpture and jewelry. Skirpa makes pieces that are dynamically functional by inter-playing the mechanical and organic, simultaneously. You will discover elements of living organisms and symbols encapsulated in the armor of her work.
Philippe Janssens
Janssens is an artist, certified metal smith and sculptor. His paintings and sculptures are expressions of the linkage between primitive and contemporary art, with the intention to remind you of your cultural and spiritual connections to people from other parts of the world. His designs are channeled directly from his spirit and imagination. With the belief that the power of the creative process itself has produced the artwork he has created. Born in Brussels, Belgium, he immigrated to the US in 1968, and has been living in Bali since 2008. Jansens graduated from the Academy of Beaux Art, Brussels and the Art & Metiers School in Jewelry Design. He went to work as an apprentice under a master Jeweler by the name of Gustave De Cock (famous in Brussels). In 1969 he came to the US and worked as a jeweler for many years and eventually opened his own business Indigena. Indigena was recently sold in 2008.
Janssens has exhibited his work mainly in Northern California and participated at Art Festivals as well, Mills Valley Art Festival, Marin County Festival, Palo Alto Festival and at Stanford University.
“In my wide space of heaven are figures and signs with, which one you can discover the deepest secrets.” - Philippe Janssens -
Victoria R. Skirpa, Artist Statement
“Though I am well-known for my futuristic sculpture, in recent years, I have moved more towards jewelry as a source of inspiration. Unlike other artistic mediums, jewelry is a physical experience. It is sculpture, that engages intimately with the body. My jewelry and small metalwork shows my preoccupation with the human body, its history of protection, and adornment.
Jewelry is also a relic that shows us who we are today and gives us access to memory and history. There has always been a cosmology for the wearing of adornment, from amour to earring: in order to please the sexes, to protect from others, to designate family and tribe, to indicate relationship to God (s), to protect and identify in battle, and many other permutations. And these things are still true in the modern world. I am profoundly interested in this phenomenon.
As a jewelry designer and sculptor, I am interested in the visual play of dichotomies such as Rough/Smooth, Fine / Crude, Interior / Exterior, Ancient/Modern, and Feminine / Masculine, Machine/Organics”
Victoriaskirpa.com, Jewelrybythelake.com
Opening night music by DJ KODA (45 Amp Recordings) 
