Building Bridges: Breaking Barriers: Part One

For 20 years my San Francisco studio had a panoramic view of the south-facing city. Things changed in 2016. The land was sold, cleared and for 3 years I watched from my window as the buildings took shape. What was left of my view was minimal. Of necessity, I was having to change my focus to developments across the street. I was also experimenting with distorting photos in the camera, in real time without Photoshop. The images became non-traditional, more cubist, unsettling. A whole new world opened up.

Two thought lines created a new series. Photos made as the light changed when images from the neighborhood were reflected in my window and the construction images combined to become the Fata Morgana* Series.  

Upon completion of the large oil painting, Forest Houses, I selected a number of focused passages or vortices that were singled out and repainted as simple and direct impasto detail paintings. This process of discovery and reworking of the selected crops freed me from the constraints of re-establishing shapes, design and color selection. I was able to concentrate on precise color mixing and application which was accomplished with a collection of palette knives.

The group of resulting details .01-.06 share similar abstracted references to the elements of houses and buildings that are partially observable among the trees and breaks in the Sea Ranch fogs. They are further informed by the colors of the verdant forests, sky, ocean and sunsets.

In this painting I am beginning to explore how much detail and/or "realism" is necessary to evoke and portray a person. I have always felt that realism for me can lack emotion and life. I am trying to find the place that hits that mark, "getting" the person. These expressive images are often disturbing to people. Sometimes it hits us at an unconscious level and may show things we do not or had not intended to display.

CURATORIAL COMMENT

Weiner's portraits of a group of older adults call attention to ageism and invite the viewer to think about the way they see themselves, how they want to be seen and to tell us about how we see others. Each of the paintings, with its unique gestures, captures a certain mood that the subject projects, conveying the intrepid spirits and wisdom that only comes with age, challenging the audience to question their own perception of age-ing. It is only when we understand the experiences that lead to breaking barriers, that we may contemplate a vision for building bridges.

 CURATORIAL COMMENT

For Liz Mamorsky, the breaking barriers metaphor is personal - the artist had to overcome her fear of cameras and their f-stops, discover a new medium of iPhoneography, reinvent her practice, only to realize that the only barriers she had to break were her self-imposed ones. As for building bridges, the fascination with colors is carried over through decades, from the Madrone biomorphic Optical Art (Op Art) painting into her current photography where the bright colors excite the eye, to form a metaphorical bridge, a symbol of unity.