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Sandi Adams lives in Berkeley, Ca. Interest in the visual arts has been a constant in her life. At nine, she was introduced to watercolor at her Saturday Milwaukee Art Institute class. Watercolor has remained her primary medium, but she has also worked in ceramics, textile art, photography and now, acrylic and mixed media collage. Her art training includes coursework at Pomona College, Scripps College, UCSF Extension, CCAC in Oakland, and service as an Art Docent at the Oakland Museum. In addition, Sandi has taken workshops with local artists including Judy Greenberg, Jane Hofsteter, Kathleen Bernman, and Ann Baldwin.  She is affiliated with the California Watercolor Association, Marin Society of Artists, Valley Art Center and Frank Bette Center for the Arts. Sandi participates regularly in juried shows at these organizations and has had three solo shows in the East Bay. 2007 has been a good year –she has received five awards! Sandi uses her photography as inspiration for much of her representational work but has been increasingly drawn to abstract layering and collage. She says ”Involvement in my artwork renews and enriches me. The doing of it, the process is critical to my well-being. An end product is almost secondary to the process! I am working toward achieving glowing, translucent color to convey an emotional impact and enjoyment for my viewer”.

Nora Handel Aton currently resides in the East Bay enclave that is El Cerrito, having grown up in Youngstown, Ohio, and moving to the East Coast after college. Nora lived in Boston for 14 years, moved to the beautiful island of Martha’s Vineyard and stayed for two years, and has for the past 4 years been residing in the East Bay with her husband and 5 year old daughter. In college she studied Liberal Arts, focusing on Economics and Psychology, but in the latter part of her college years began to find she had deeper interests that lay in the world of art and philosophy. She started writing poetry and essays, and gradually found her way to the camera. From there it’s been a road of experimentation and discovery to find new ways to express more fully her thoughts, feelings, concepts and ideas. Basically self-taught in the media of photography and computer graphics, Nora has gained insight and inspiration from many great artists, such as photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams, and painters Picasso and Georgia O’Keefe, to name only a few. Most recently Nora has been digitally manipulating her photographs to find new meanings that lie within the inner realms. The photographs become thought-provoking dreamscapes or images that conjure the dramatic interplay of forces in life. The Artist asks: “What can you see through the contortions of a real-time photograph? Can you see the essence of Life in motion and time?” Nora has shown her work in Martha’s Vineyard and San Francisco. This is her first exhibit in the East Bay.

Carol Jones Brown of Castro Valley, grew up in Sacramento, began painting in oils more than 40 years ago. She attended many workshops and classes by regional and national artists, is inspired by the work of Matisse, Chagall, Jasper Johns, and sculptors such as Magdalena Abakanowitz and Niki de Saint Phalle.  She taught painting classes at the Adobe Art Center, Castro Valley, then recently retired after 30 plus years with Hayward Adult School.  Carol now works in acrylics and mixed mediums in an abstract manner.  She craves strong, bright colors, saying, “I love to attack my blank canvases with globs of hot color or luscious cool tones, then slap on a variety of textured papers to see what will happen.  My goal is to create a surprise, for myself and for the viewer”  She has shown in many galleries and her pieces are in private collections around the world.  She is a member of several active Bay Area art organizations and currently president of A.R.T., Inc. in Castro Valley. Her website is www.sildtreegallery.com

Komi Chen was born in Taipei, Taiwan into an artistic family.  Her father, Kuo Hsueh-Hu, is one of Taiwan’s premier visual artist, and considered one of its national treasures.   Her father trained her on the fundamentals of classical Chinese painting and calligraphy.  Komi currently lives in San Jose, CA.  Komi learned formal artistic techniques at the College of Fine Arts, part of Taiwan’s prestigious training ground for teachers, the Taiwan National Normal University.  Today, she works mostly with Eastern gouache painted on silk.  Komi Chen’s unique visual style blends Western realism with a modern Chinese sensibility.  As a woman who has spent time in both the East and West, it seems natural that her works would reflect the visual styles of both traditions.  Komi has won numerous awards including the Best in show at the Murrysville, PA Art Festival (1981) and the Collector’s Awards for the Murrysville Women’s Club Show (1981). She has exhibited at various venues including Pittsburgh Three Rivers Art Festival, Taipei Art Museum, the Taipei Oil Painting Society Annual Art Show, the East Gallery, the Howard Gallery ,and he Chi-Hwa Art Center.  Her work has been published and syndicated online as well as licensed internationally for use in puzzles, annual reports, and other print publications.

Elwyn Crawford resides in Oakland, CA where she works from her home-based studio.  She was born in Seattle WA, and became a California resident at 17.  Growing up without much television, encouraged her into a number of creative pastimes inclucing drawing and mixed media collage and sculpture. She committed to following the artist path at the age of 22.  Her passion for hats developed into a creative art in 2005.  As the artist states, “I have been drawn to hats, since I was a young teen, not only because of the frequency with which I have bad hair days, but also because I have seen over and over how they are able to amplify the self-assuredness of the one who dons this historically ubiquitous and functional fashion accessory. As a sixteen year old, I wore a beret, but soon began borrowing my father’s Stetson fedoras.  His collection from various vintage shops around the country, made me aware of the durability of hats through time and I began to think of each hat as having a life of its own.”  She is largely self-taught, although she has learned a number of skills from the many teachers that have come into her life on her personal arts education including Robert Burke, Jasmin Zorlu and DeAnna Gibbons.   She is inspired first by the patterns and colors found in the natural world and by other artists and hat designers both living and dead, including Aubrey Beardsley, Egon Shiele, Marlene Dumas, Joseph Campbell, Justin Smith, and the use of color and depth by graffiti artists.  Her current line of hats focuses on hand blocking felts, both sumptuous new fur felts and reclaimed vintage hat bodies.

Marsha Dalmas, a lifelong resident of the Bay Area, followed her degree in art from the University of California at Berkeley with service in the Peace Corps in Kenya. While teaching for thirty years at the French-American International School in San Francisco, art remained a great love. Whether focusing on a broad California landscape or on a simple still life, she is captivated by vibrant color and the patterns of simple shapes. Marsha’s work avoids a naturalistic palate and demonstrates an interest in unusual perspective and nuances of light and shadow. Her work is always bold and painterly, often bursting through the picture plane. The artist says, “I am captivated by ordinary objects and the study of relationships between value, hue and texture. The thrill of a new landscape with fresh color is always intriguing.” Dalmas has shown her work at the annual show of The Pastel Society of the West, at the Greenlining Institute, at East Bay Pro Arts, and this fall The Pastel Society of America selected her work for its annual exhibition at The National Arts Club in Manhattan. She is happy to show her work at Expressions Gallery once again.

Elizabeth Dante is a master artisan who is highly skilled in all aspects of casting and carving, Elizabeth works in numerous media such as bronze, aluminum, acrylics and other gypsum products: resins concrete, marble and various products.  While a gemologist living and traveling in Brazil, Panama and Southeast Asia, Ms. Dante attained an affinity for the Third World.  This ever-present influence has provided Dante with stylistic inspiration for works ranging from classic naturalism to stylistic narration.  Much of her work explores the dynamics between round organic forms and hard rigid angles.  By exaggerating this inter- play, her work creates a sense of tension which is both lively and sensual. Ms. Dante has said that her work combined ancient and modern rituals, extracting stylized motifs and archetypes.”I pay homage to the many facets of the human sprit, characterized by warmth, humor and sometimes political commentary.”  Although she possesses an academic background that includes the Gemological Institute of America, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the College of Marin, Ms. Dante remains essentially self-taught.  She has honed her craft by working for established sculptors most notably Ellio Benvenuto.  While an artist assistant to German artist Toni Bruchert in Pietra,Italy, Ms. Dante learned traditional techniques and methods for chasing bronze, patinas, casting methods, and marble carving.  Most recently as a patina artisan, Ms. Dante has  worked with Bay Area Artists Steven De Stabebler, Bruce Beasley, and Ruth Asawa. Ms. Dante has exhibited in numerous shows in United States and Italy.  Her outstanding works have been showcased in collaborative efforts such as “Art on the Rock at Alcatraz”, and “The Day of the Dead” Exhibition at The Museum of Mexican Art.  In 1990, she received the prestigious Art of Peace Award from the Artist Embassy International for her sculpture “Woman's Liberation”, which was chosen by the Oakland Art Commission as a gift to Nelson Mandela and the people of South Africa.

Lajuana Decatur was born in the Bay Area, but she transplanted herself in her teens to New Mexico. Her artistic message infuses a blend of the flavors of California’s myriad beauties, in all their diversity, and the spectacular, spiritual dimensions of the Southwest desert. Her paintings, which are done in acrylic and oil, are her form of story telling. She calls them talking paintings. Her style, uniquely her own, has been seasoned with the spices of African and Southwest artists. She loves acrylic and watercolor. Everybody is not a Stranger is a mélange of all races, all socioeconomic strata, everyone, embodying the human spirit as one existence. Reborn speaks to the resurrection of the spirit of woman and of human kind. In short, it speaks to the unification of all beings in one.

Barbara de Groot started her artistic interests when she was in grade school. By the time she was a teenager and had devoured the book Lust For Life, a biography about Vincent Van Gogh given to her by her nanny the dye was cast.  She was drawing whenever the opportunity arose.  In her early High school years she drew and painted from live models at the Brooklyn Museum Art School with Isaac Soyer, one of three brothers who worked with figurative imagery. She also was fortunate to study in high school with very talented and comprehensive artist/instructors. Much later in Berkeley, CA she joined a group of artists and drew weekly from live models for about 12 years.  Barbara de Groot is a local Berkeley Artist and teacher of art who works in various types of media such as monotypes; Chine Colle with other media; Wood Block prints; Linoleum Block prints; Mixed Media Collage, as shown here; Drypoint; Transfer Methods; painting and drawing. She was an Art Major in Hunter College in New York. Where she learned basic printmaking under noted printmaker, Gabor Peterdi and later attended Academic Goetz in Paris, France where she learned many of her specialized printmaking skills. She also takes photos to capture inspirations for future paintings and prints and has developed her photographic skills as well and enters some of her photographs in Around the Globe.  Her work is in many private collections and has appeared in many exhibits in various galleries here and abroad and is archived in the Women’s Museum in Washington, DC and in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.

Marin Fischer was born in New York City, attended City University and Brooklyn College in New York, and received her Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degrees from Arizona State University. She now lives in Berkeley, California. Ms. Fischer is a nationally known painter and muralist. Her drawings and paintings have been shown at U.C. Berkeley, the Phoenix Art Museum, and galleries throughout the United States. Her murals can be seen on the Claremont Avenue underpass in Oakland, California, the O’Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley, and various locations in Phoenix, Arizona. She has also been a teacher of art, murals, and theatre; a scenic artist--painting sets for the Lyric Opera Theatre at Arizona State University; and designed, built, and painted sets for a local theatre production of the rock musical “Hair.” She states: “My watercolor paintings and colored pencil drawings of water/landscapes deal with the effects of light and shadow on smooth and textured planes, lines, and surfaces. These images are figurative reflections of the physical and emotional impact of light and color reflected onto the eye.” “Art is the creation of forms symbolic of human feeling.” – Suzanne Langer, Feeling and Form, 1952

Mark Fischer lives in the Bay Area in California and was born in Pennsylvania, Stationed in Amberg, Germany in the US Army and earned a B.S. in electronics and computer engineering from George Mason University. For 10 years he worked in software development, defense and telecommunications and since 2002, has been doing independent research in cetacean and more recently, avian acoustics. He states: “There are any number of paths to an environmental epiphany: For many people it was the first time they heard the song of the Humpback whale. While on a "walkabout" in Baja California Sur, I became fascinated by cetacean acoustics during an especially vivid encounter in the Sea of Cortez. As a trained computer engineer, I soon realized that the visual representations of the songs of whales had not advanced much beyond crude graphs and spectrograms. There was nothing that adequately captured the sheer beauty of sounds that can be louder than a jet engine and as melodic as the human voice. Researching the issues lead to the mathematics of wavelets, and the development of a process for visually expressing the sounds of whales and dolphins.” Recently artist Mark Fischer has been widening the scope of this work, from initial forays with the acoustics of whales and dolphins, now including the songs of birds and insects. The result is AGUASONIC® art in the form of prints and movies made from these sounds. The prints can be finished as large as 4 feet by 8 feet using Alumin Arte, or more modest sizes on Crane Museo archival paper and canvas.

Rinna Flohr lives in Oakland, California. She grew up on the East Coast in New Jersey and New York. She graduated from Syracuse University with a B. A. in theatre arts and a Masters of Social Work. She also completed a Certificate in Psychodrama at the Moreno Institute of Psychodrama in New York. She received her license as a clinical social worker and for 37 years she work as a licensed psychotherapist in private practice and as Deputy Director of Mental Health for Alameda County and Assistant Director for San Francisco County Behavioral Health Services. In 1991 her house burned down in the Oakland fire, which led her to study Interior Architecture and Design in order to rebuild her home. She completed the program at UC Berkeley in 2001. With an interior design background she began doing remodels and interiors that later led her to floral designing. She studied floral design with Ron Morgan. Her floral designs ere part of the Bouquets to Art Show at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco in the past and she is a member of the San Francisco Museum flower committee. She also makes jewelry from recycled materials left over from interior design projects and later from other found objects such as found rubbe from inner tubes of tires or cement from building site. Currently she is founder and Director of Expressions Gallery in Berkeley, Ca. and is President of San Francisco Women Artists in San Francisco.

Chandra Garsson lives in Oakland, California. She grew up in Los Angeles, California. She has two degrees in fine art, including a Master of Fine Arts from San Jose State University, with her B.F.A. from U. C. Santa Cruz. After making perhaps two thousand or so paintings, sculptures, etchings, and mixed media works, shown nationally and internationally, Chandra has returned to an earlier and more ornamental mode, that of jewelry making. Her work has been most recently shown at Deep Roots Tea House Gallery, in Oakland. Before that, in the last show in the old space of Pro Arts Gallery (the first solo exhibition of the gallery at the time), over two hundred of Chandra Garsson’s works were shown in the exhibit, Insomnia (Awakening).  For now, after many years of work observing problems concerned with our human condition, she finds joy in the simplicity of beauteously decorating the people of our world. Artist states: “a Google search of my name and a click on my websites will confirm the radical nature of the change I have made in my work when I began making jewelry.” Her jewelry has been exhibited at Pro Arts Gallery, Oakland, The Gem Gallery and Bill’s Trading Post, Berkeley, and Itsy Bitsy, Rockridge.

Devon Gaster lives in San Francisco and is a florist and floral design instructor with 26 years experience in the Floral industry. He had his own retail floral store for 13 years and taught floral design classes in Hawaii and in San Francisco. For the last two years, he has been teaching classes at the San Francisco Flower Market.. Devon Gaster presents his interpretation of Elegance and Simplicity as part of this current Expressions Gallery show. He will also be doing some demonstrations and classes at the Gallery and will Jury a couple of floral artists, student and public entrant florar art sows and contests during the run of the show. Expressins Gallery is proud to take the lead from the San Francisco Museums who have brought us the Bouquet to Arts Shows at the Legion of Honor and De Young Museums over the years and feature floral arts as another regular art from offered fro viewing tna sale in its Gallery and as part of its educational program.

Susan Hall was born in Florida but has resided in the East Bay since age 5 and currently lives in Albany. She earned a BA and MSW at UC Berkeley.  After 21 years as a juvenile probation officer, she retired in 1994 to pursue her life-long interest in art.  Her journey into painting began with watercolors in sunny Puerto Vallarta Mexico where she hangs out for a month every winter.  More recently she has turned to oil painting and has taken art classes at Laney college.   She is a frequent world traveler. What inspires her most is color, design and value contrasts.  She is attracted by abstract organic patterns found in nature such as the aerial views of landscapes, the graceful rounded shapes of rivers or plant forms.  And she is drawn to rich color combinations – bright tropical hues like those she might find in the ornamental design of a tribal costume.  Her brightly colored oil paintings are sometimes inspired from photos taken during her travels or they just spring from her imagination.  She is also part of a local pleim-air group that paints from nature. Her work has been shown in many restaurants, several galleries in the Bay Area and is on display year-round in a gallery in Puerto Vallarta.

Derek Hobbs currently living in Oakley California grew up in the farming community of Woodland California.  With artistic parents and an appetite for creation constantly driving him, the artist always finds himself looking forward to the next canvas.  As an artist who had always prided himself on being self-taught Derek had the opportunity to attend and graduate from the California College of Arts & Crafts. Majoring in illustration the artist has turned away from the commercial world and is trying to create a niche in fine art.  The coffee & acrylic medium as well as the technique Derek has been developing since 2000, using a middle ground to work from to create some of the transparent and lighting effects have been greatly influenced by such artist as Marshall Arisman, &Barron Storey.  Salvador Dali has always influenced some of the surreal elements.  Commonly asked about the recipe, process, and brand of coffee used the artist will often reply “Wht kind of coffee do you use?”

Melanie Hofmanngraduated with a BFA in Textiles from the California College of the Arts in 1996. Her home and studio are located in Berkeley.  She first explored the joy of creating art in pre-school and she has not stopped since.  As a teenager she fell in love with fiber art, specifically with weaving and dyeing fabrics. Melanie has received awards from the Taegu International Textile Design competition and from Manhattan Arts International.  Limited edition prints of her digital art are in the corporate collection of Lifescan, Inc. in Milpitas. Last year, Melanie had a solo exhibition of textiles in the corporate lobby of 255 California Street in San Francisco. Melanie works with both textile and digital media. Her work has been inspired by a number of artists including, Joan Miro, Rene Magritte and Magdalena Abakanowicz. She was also influenced by the artwork of her maternal grandmother, Zura Young, an abstract painter. Melanie seeks to convey through her work the interactive process with her media and a visual representation of her inner world. For this show, she is featuring her artwork on Italian charm bracelets, tile boxes, coasters, and trivets. Melanie also offers custom designed Italian charm bracelets with digital photos or art transferred to the charms using dye sublimation technology and tile coasters and boxes.

Stan Huncilman was born in Indiana but he is a product of the San Francisco Bay Area art world.  He attended San Francisco State University where e was introduced to Funk Art and Happenings in the ‘70s.  He received his M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1984.  S.F.A.I. is the home of the Bay Area’s leading art instructors. He has been a sculptor for more than 25 years.  Stan works in a variety of materials.  As a matter of practice he uses the material that is most expedient to creating the sculpture he wants rather than “pushing a particular material.”  His sculptures often begin from a simple sketch.  He prefers to work in a in a direct manner tan her than making molds of models before the final sculpture. The artist states: “I combine a child-like playfulness with primitivism. This creates a wonderland of intriguing forms and convoluted messages.  When I enter my studio there is a mental sign post reading “Linear Thinking Stops Here.” Through my sculpture I create a world of nutritiously puzzling paradigms whose roots may be in religion, folk art, nineteenth century industrialisms or Greek mythology.  In this world, a whimsical sense of humor walks arm in arm with an obstinate determination to create.  The sculptures in this exhibition are part of his “All My Psyches” series, a whimsical yet intriguing observation of the complexities of consciousness.  His solo exhibits include Holy Names College in Oakland, California and the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.

Darrell Hunger lives in Oakland, California where he was born and grew up. He attended San Jose University and studied Art and Industrial Design and received a B.A.  Later, he continued his studies at UC Berkeley where he received a MFA.  Darrell works in many medias, but is presently showing three of his acrylic landscapes at Expressions Gallery. The Artist refers to the style of painting as “vivid realism”. The paintings are of sublime landscapes from the Sierra Nevada mountain range.  The scenes are from the alpine zone above 10,000 feet. This is where the peaks reach for the sky and summer snow fee the rivers to create the unique State of California. He states: “I attempt to capture the uncommon view of nature through careful observation of form and color.  The colors are altered slightly to heighten the impressions of the scenes yet not distort the subtle natural beauty.” Darrell’s landscapes have been in solo and group shows at Ohlone College Gallery, Rockridge Library Gallery, and Mill Valley Council Chambers.

Rafael Landea is an Argentinean artist who moved to San Francisco in 2002. He graduated in Art and Set Design from the University of La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and continued his education with some well-known Argentinean visual artists in the areas of Painting, Creativity, and Literature. From the beginning of his career, he has been interested in theater, music, literature, and murals.  Rafael joined a theater company as a set designer and later started to work in some of the biggest theatrical venues of Buenos Aires. Working as a muralist and set designer has allowed him to travel to different countries in Latin America and Europe, either to present plays in festivals or for mural projects. Rafael painted several murals in different countries such as Brazil, Uruguay, Cuba, and the latest in Torino, Italy. Rafael has also held exhibits of his art in Chile, Switzerland, Spain, and the USA.  Since arriving to San Francisco, he has painted his first mural in the city (the façade of a City and County Clinic for Children) and has focused his work on painting and multimedia projects. His work is regularly published in different media, reviews, interviews, essays, CD covers, and books. Photos of his murals in Buenos Aires are commonly found in tour guides and other travel publications. Different collectors from Spain, Baske Country, USA, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay own his art. Lately he has been working on web based projects, websites, animations, and short films, one of them commissioned by the Museum of Art and Memory, which premiered in July 2007 in Argentina. The short film was done in homage to one of the most important political Argentinean comic strip writers, Hector G. Oesterheld, who was killed during the dictatorship ’76–’82. Most recently he has been working on a new series of large size oils called ‘Dress Rehearsal', where he explores the backstage world of opera houses.  Familiar parts of the plots of the selected operas are also depicted. The fictional opera characters and the theater workers ‘live’ the opera in a visual game that reminds us of the age old question, ‘Does life imitate art, or vice versa?’  For this show, he enters ink drawings and acrylic paintings all displaying his delightful sense of humor, which is almost always part of his art.

Sandra Lo was born in china. She grew up in China and Hong Kong and immigrated to the US in 1989. She started learning drawing at a very young age.  Her father, William S. Hung a famous oil painter, has been her teacher.  Sandra took some workshops, figure drawing and painting classes but other than that, she is mostly self-taught.  She is following in her father’s footsteps, and has become a accomplished painter who works primarily in oil and pastels.  Sandra has a fill time job in paint on lunch hours, another field but still finds time to paint on lunch hours, evenings and weekends.  She is a member of San Francisco Women Arts and her paintings are exhibited at SFWA Gallery in San Francisco, every month.  Sandra’s portraits are extremely well executed and she offers commissioned portraiture through Expressions Gallery.

Kenneth Logan is a local artist from Berkeley/Oakland Border he calls it Brokeland. He came to Berkeley in 1992 to attend UC Berkeley, where he acquired the beginnings of his art in motion and a BA in literature. He makes his love of the desert accessible by hand picking rocks with unique geology and matching them with recycled toys wheels. By merging natural and urban materials, these rock and rollers transform the primitive beauty and mystery of the desert into the playful nature of things. Each piece is one of a kind.

Jennifer Wallace Mack has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute.  She works in various media: painting, photography, mixed media, and jewelry.  Her work is consistent in the quality and detail in each medium she applies.  She has exhibited at a number of solo and group shows, many of which were juried.  Shown at Expressions Gallery is her magnificent jewelry.  Jennifer has served on various Board of Directors for long standing Artists Organizations such as the San Francisco Women Artists, where she was a past President and continues in the current Board as Vice Treasurer and The San Francisco Gem and Mineral organization where she is currently Treasurer.

John Mallon grew up in the East Bay Area being born in Oakland, his present residence. Arts and crafts have been an interest since early childhood. While in the Navy, pencil portraits were a hobby. From there sculpture and painting became an interest as time went by, resulting in private painting instruction from a bay area teacher. A long list of “How To” art books have helped along the way with sculpture and pencil drawing, as well as a teacher in woodcarving. Awards came from Art shows presented by the Oakland and Alameda Art Associations the past 20 years.  Mallon is still a Member of both and has been President of both Associations.

Mallon states: “Monet, Dali and CA painter George Otis are an inspiration to me.  Color and graphite pencil is my favorite and best mediums. I have fun decorating hats and t-shirts using fabric paints.”

Sonia Melnikova was born and trained as an artist and architect in Moscow ad holds a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts and Architectural Design from the prestigious Moscow State Architectural Institute. Her artworks in various media were exhibited in art salons in Moscow and since 1987, in San Francisco including the Jewish Museum, Fort Mason, College of Marin, De Anza College, Gallery Route One and Virginia Brier, Spectrum, Bradford, Euphrat, Koret and San Francisco Women Artists Galleries. The artist’s current medium is digital photography but her training and her “inner eye” as a painter and architect show throughout her works, which have an uncanny resemblance of painted media.  She tends to work in series the central theme of which is often a nostalgic reflection on things past.  The artworks selected for the Elegance and Simplicity exhibit come from “Garage Sale” and “Windows of the Past” series, which consist of photographs taken at flea markets, ghost towns, garage sales, and antique stores. The images for this show are a reflection on discarded things of the past whose value is not necessarily in the preciousness of the material, practical usefulness or conventional attractiveness but in the priceless memories they evoke. All works are signed high-resolution original photographs printed on archival quality art papers using fade-resistant inks.

Maj-Britt Mobrand lives in Berkeley, CA but was born and grew up in Stockholm, Sweden.  As a little girl, she saw her grandmother’s loom in the attic and was very intrigued by it and knew she wanted to master one of those.  She has taken weaving classes both in Sweden and the U.S., but is for the most part self-taught.  She has been teaching weaving here in Berkeley since 1968 and has only sporadically been showing her artwork.  Some of the juried shows she has participated in are U.C. Berkeley and Live Oak Art Galleries in Berkeley (1969); Artist League of Vallejo Gallery (1975); Olive Hyde Art Gallery in Fremont (1988); and Pro Arts Gallery in Oakland (2006).  She has also participated in many Open Studios and has shown her work at various local venues and as a result has weavings in many private collections. Artist states:  “I enjoy using traditional weaves and patterns in a non-traditional manner and am striving to find a harmonious balance between the natural and the artificial or planned.  My inspiration is derived from music, nature, travels, and from my students.  It’s wonderful to see the enthusiasm of my students as they develop their projects on their looms after I’ve given them the ‘know how’.”

Patricia Monaco grew up in Walnut Creek and now lives in Oakland. She studied Anthropology and received a BA degree from UC Berkeley. After two trips by road through the Middle East to India in the 60’s, she decided to study photography.  In 1984 she received a grant from the National Endowment for the Visual Arts for her images of the blues in Oakland and the Mississippi delta.  With the grant she went to Peshawar, Pakistan to go into Afghanistan to photograph the war against the Soviets.  Since 1984 she has been documenting the Afghan people and their struggle. Patricia has exhibited in many shows, including the Dallas Museum of Art and the Oakland Museum Collectors Gallery.

Judith Mortensen currently resides in Oakland. Initially from Minnesota, and except for short stays in Los Angeles and Norfolk, Virginia she has lived most of her life in Northern California. She began her career as a physical therapist, graduating from UCSF but when her children began school, Judith started school again, too. She enrolled at CCA and studied painting part time until she earned her degree. Many years later she continues to paint and continues her studies. She has shown her work at LA Artcore and at the University of Oregon. She recently won "best of show" award at Frank Bett gallery in Alameda. The construction of necklaces came about in a very unglamorous way. After standing at an easel for hours one day I felt tired but inspired. Constructing a necklace was a way to continue to create while I rested. I liked the luminous, colorful and fragile quality of the seed beads balanced by the more substantial neck band. Only a few exist because they take forever to complete.

Neshat Rezai was born in Shiraz, Iran and moved to the U.S. at the age of 14 where she completed undergraduate and Dental School.  She currently resides and practices in Berkeley. Neshat is a glass artist specializing in kiln form glass fusing.  She uses glass as her medium with occasionally incorporating metal and gold leaf.  She finds glasswork very similar to dentistry where one needs to have artistic ability and precision.  Her work is largely inspired by Persian patterns and nature. “My work is a celebration of colors–LIFE.  Glass is truly a medium that is limitless.  Since childhood art has always been part of my life.  When I found glass, I found my passion. Glass is so fragile, yet so powerful.”

Diego Marcial Rios lives in the Bay Area and paints in acrylics.  He graduated with honors with an M.A. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Department of Fine Arts Graduate School and a B.F.A. from University of California at Berkeley.  He received a number of honors scholarships for Academic study.  His artwork illustrates many complex social-economic issues faced by contemporary society.  About his work he states: “I create art that is visually stimulating to gain initial viewer acceptance.  Once this is achieved, the viewer is confront with ancient symbols of life and death.”  The figures and landscapes in the art are inspired by what I have experienced and later dreamed about.  Diego’s work has been widely shown throughout the United States and Mexico and he is in a number of Museum Collections: The Auchenbach Foundation Collection at the Palace of the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco, Coos Art Museum, Coos Bay, Oregon; Laguna Beach Museum, Laguna Beach, CA; Museo National De La Estampa, Mexico city, Mexico, etc.. He has also illustrated a number of books and his work is part of a number of Public Collections: Harriet Taubman Gallery, MD; Mission Cultural Center, SF; The Collector Gallery of the Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA; Irish Arts Council, Belfast, Ireland and many more.  He has appeared as a speaker on Art and been interviewed on Television.  His artwork has been included in many magazines.

Stanford Rose spent his childhood in Oklahoma, Louisiana and Utah. He now lives in Oakland, California. His style has evolved from simple landscape photography toward emphasis on perspective and formal properties at the expense of subject matter.  He states, “I want to free the viewer from the habits of perception that attend the recognition of subject.  It’s especially delightful when you see the esthetic values first, which then may evoke different images and emotions, then perhaps say irrelevantly, “Oh, it’s a---.”’  These photographs were taken in Indian Valley, Plumas County last winter in the backwaters of a small stream where unusual and unpredictable conditions of freezing occur.  Scientists at the Earth Sciences department, Washington State were unable to account for some of the phenomena in these pictures.  As a physicist states, “Phase change is imperfectly understood.”

Christine M. Rossi lives in Berkeley, CA and has been an artist for most of her life.  Her work reflects her experiences both externally and internally and she works in oil, casein, encaustic paint and collage. The artist states: “ For me oils express the narrative and captures the energy within the story, or the depiction of everyday life, the luminescence of Casein paint conveys the life within the face of a portrait, and encaustic paint mixed with photos and assemblage is essential to me in relaying the expression of spirit and emotion” Christine studied costume and stage design at SUNY Binghamton, illustration and color theory through the UC Berkeley Extension Programs but is mostly self-taught in the use of oils, casein and encaustic paint. She recently branched into photography and mixes photographic images within her pieces through collage and digital manipulation. The pieces in this show were executed from antique photos of members of her and her husband’s family in New York State.  “Emma” depicts the farming roots of her maternal ancestors while “Ella” expresses the spirit of a woman who is about to be married at the turn of the 19th century. Both original paintings are also offered for sale through the gallery.

Dinesh C. Shrestha, live in 2398 Parker St. # 9, Berkeley, CA 94704. I grew up in Kathmandu, Nepal. I drew the comic’s characters in my childhood. I saw one painting in which lot of details works done by the artist and I came to knew, that types of paintings call Thangka (Pawvha) and I became interested in Thangka art. First, my brother started doing that kind of painting and I feel it was challenging work and it influenced me. My elder brother inspires me as an artist. I work in water base paints as poster color and home made special canvas. My achievements: First Prize, 28th National Art Exhibition (1998) in Nepal, Second Prize, 26th National Art Exhibition (1996). Dinesh participated in Numerous Exhibitions around the World, London, New York and in Marin County. Some paintings are in Fukuoka Asian Art Museum’s Collection in Fukuoka, Japan. One painting is in Rubin Museum of Art, in New York, USA. Some paintings are with Robert Beer in his collection (Collector, Writer, Illustrator) in London, UK. Some paintings are with Nepali collectors in Nepal. About my work, which is exhibiting in this show is Aryaba Lokiteshora. There are 108 Lokiteshoras, and he is one of them. This is from Buddhist religion. Lokiteshora means Lord of the world. Nowadays I’m giving art classes in Yoga Mandala at 2807 Telegraph Ave.

Rita Sklar is an award-winning artist.  She only started showing her work seven years ago.  She attended classes and workshops throughout the Bay Area and trained with a private watercolor master in Madrid for a year. She draws inspiration from her life in the multi-cultural Bay Area.  Previously, she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Senegal, West Africa and worked for corporate giving programs and foundations serving the Bay Area’s non-profit community. Sklar’s watercolors of animals and birds have been shown at the Oakland Zoo and other venues.  Her landscapes have been shown at Filoli Gardens.  Expressions Gallery presents Sklar’s snow landscapes on paper and her still lifes. Sklar skillfully juggles organic and geometric forms, transparent and opaque paint - all held together by a basic abstract underlying shape. It is this intricate dance, rendered in strong color and value, which produces her exciting paintings. Solo exhibits featuring Sklar works have been held at the Montclair Gallery, Tilden Park Nature Center, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Wente Vineyards Estate Winery, East Bay Municipal Utility District, Pro Arts Gallery’s Broadway Windows Project, and the Albany Community Center. Currently, Sklar’s work can be seen at the Royal Ground Gallery in Montclair, the Solano Grill in Albany, and San Francisco Women Artists’ Gallery in San Francisco.

Helene Sobol is a San Francisco photographer who was born and grew up in Norway. During her teenage years, her family lived in the outskirts of Paris and she developed an interest in travel photography. She attended the University of Oslo, followed by the University of Hawaii, receiving her B.A. in Art History from UC Berkeley. Inspired by the French photographer Cartier-Bresson’s spontaneous moments and Edward Weston’s keen eye for composition, she also took photography classes and learned darkroom techniques. In 1979, she opened Images of the North, a gallery specializing in Inuit (Eskimo) art in San Francisco and, during the ensuing two decades, devoted herself to the gallery and to her family, raising two children. She retired from her gallery in 2004 to pursue her longtime interest in travel photography and to develop collections for future exhibitions. In 2004, she introduced “The Bark Series”, a collection of close ups of tree bark, at the Botanical Garden Library in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. In the spring of 2006, she presented “Memories and Moods – Norway Revisited” at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle. She recently had a solo exhibition, “From Norway to San Francisco – Moods, Memories and Moments” at the Norwegian Seamen’s Church in San Francisco. Helene has exhibited in several shows at Expressions Gallery since 2006.       

Arlene Risi Streich, grew up and lives in Oakland, Ca. and cannot remember a time that she has not been interested in art. She received her B.A. ED and A.B. F. A (Painting) from California College of Arts and Crafts (Now CCA) and has lived and spent much time in Mexico doing painting and photography. She has taught in the Oakland Public Schools, Diablo Valley College (Painting, drawing and fashion illustration) and CCAC (Children’s classes). She is presently exhibiting her glass jewelry, a medium started four years ago, and her painting. Her Jewelry work is influenced by her background in painting incorporating a bold use of color and line. Her painting and jewelry work has been shown in numerous exhibits around the country and in private collections. Artist states: “Our role as artists is to continue to amaze, provoke, stimulate, delight and agitate the senses. The fact that we continue to do so is a testimonial to not being complacent, while trying to process the internal/external creative dialogue.”

Georgia Whitaker lives in the Hayward hills and grew up in Sacramento, Ca. where she graduated from high school with a scholarship in Art. She graduated from California College of Arts with a Bachelor of Arts degree and worked in the field of graphic arts for five years.  She taught color theory and gave college classes at the adult school in Castro Valley, Marin Society of Artists and Valley Arts Gallery in Walnut Creek show her work.  She received best of show at the Alameda County Fairs. Georgia loves fine arts and is an accomplished artist with many exhibit and honors behind her. She has plunged into the world of fashion and is now designing wearable art. She will custom design orders in different sizes.

Mary Younkin is a bay area transplant from Orange County, CA.  She graduated with distinction form the California College of the Arts in 2004 with a BFA.  She now lives and works in Oakland.  She did an internship at Pro Arts Gallery in Oakland from Sept. – Nov. 2005 and spent some time in 2003 at the Lamar Dodd School of Fine Art in Cortona, Italy for the Spring semester of college.  She has had some solo and group exhibits around the Bay Area.  Mary a growing collections of founds photos.  Photographs allow her a launching point from which to enhance narratives of family, relationship, color, and expression in the medium of painting and drawing. Generally said to have a nostalgic or timeless feel, the figures in her work have become, for her, a sort of album.  Her choices of color, pattern, and composition create scenes that are awkwardly happy. There’s a factitious quality that invites the viewer in to participate in the curiosity.  Mary has experience working with a variety of mediums including oil painting, acrylics, graphite, pen & ink, woodcut, and monotype. The works currently in this show feature figurative oil paintings on vintage purses.