Paintings & mixed media by Andrew Macrae and Diane Mettleman
Artist Party Friday June 12th, 6 to 9pm
Show runs June 1st, 2015, through July 18th 2015
Art derived from our urban landscape, captured and re-imagined these two local artists actualize the art of flow.
Andrew Macrae
I create imagery intuitively, working the composition as I go along. The first objects of the image are scenes from nature: trees, mountains and animals. The scene slowly fills with solid shapes and perfect lines; objects of human conception. I am showing the act of contemplation as man slowly imparts his development over and around the established nature. What remains in the end is an image exhibiting tension between man and nature, a scene where the two are wrapped up in a chaotic commotion. I use a broad array of mediums to create a painting, but I prefer watercolor and gouache on paper. In my paintings, watercolor is used to create faded landscapes, while gouache is used as the foreground medium, so I can push line and color. When combined, my images become vibrant displays of graphic subjects existing in a dream state. Admacrae.com
Diane Mettelman
“I am attracted to real world objects, constantly rescuing discarded metal objects from the road and highway. I should have a bumper sticker that says, “ I brake for metal scrap!” -D.R.Mettelman About 17 years ago, with scraps of copper given to me by a metalsmith friend, I started a 2D collage. After learning how to make a copper rivet, I had made my first piece of wall art, and I was hooked. Since then, with varied combinations of metals, I continue to create. Sometimes I braze, solder, and use common commercial fasteners, but the copper rivet continues to be my mainstay. Using wood, paint, copper pipe and fittings, I have expanded to create 3D sculpture and furniture. An avid hiker, I began to include stones collected on mountain hikes. Including raw stone with the discarded or “scrap” objects from once natural resources completes the connection to my love of nature. Using recycled materials allows me to communicate the beauty I see in these discarded objects. My pieces seem to create themselves, and like all art, are open to the viewer’s interpretation. I am merely the conduit through which the creations are formed. Mettelworks.com
I
find the
sculpting of kinetic gas plasma within the space of a glass vessel both
fascinating and absorbing. As might be expected from a media based on
chaos, my work is very experimental. It is most often unpredictable and
surprising, as well as extremely sensitive to fine-tuning and a
delicate 
balance
between numerous
non-linear variables. The resulting chaotic order is beautiful,
enthralling, interactive with the viewer and often mesmerizing. It
seems suggestive of many other natural processes and forms. I believe
that some of this beauty and attraction derives from an underlying
similarity between the processes creating the plasma forms and the
circuitry and functioning of our minds. They actually seem to be in
tune with each other.
So, like Dr. Frankenstein
in
his lab, I hover over my glass and gas plasma work, spending many hours
mixing, balancing and fine-tuning. Still, the plasma light behaves in a
way that I can never completely control. I can change or direct its
behavior by varying the pressure and mix of gases, or the frequency and
the voltage of the power, but I can never fully predict the detailed
effects any of my actions will have. Though frustrating at times, this
unpredictability is at the very heart of my work. This is the
personality, the mystery, the life that I try to create in my art.
When
art is transcendent, it will take the common and make it profane. The
art of Yvette Buigues takes everyday animals in ordinary situations and
imbues these friendly subjects with context and dialogue, giving often
taken for granted creatures a unique opportunity to speak to viewers
through visual expression and become part of a sort of innocent
iconography. 
seen
as an emotional or
political statement, as animals sometimes appear with weapons, in
landscapes, or with flamboyant floral prints. At other times these
figures appear with scripts of jumbled language, almost seeming to be
speaking in tongues or in a sort of chant, warning us of something. 
