The Foundry Gallery kicks off this weekend with its Annual New Members’ Exhibit, “Feb Four,” open to public February 1-26th, 2012, featuring Linda Button, Lesley Clarke, Peter Loge and Edward Bear Miller, the newest full time gallery members. The opening reception is Friday February 3rd, 6—8pm. The artists' works range from figurative oil painting, to mixed media on canvas, to conceptual assemblage. While their approaches are different, the artists have a common interest in showing the world as they see it to be. "These four artists are exciting additions to our gallery", said Foundry's President Ronald Riley. "We are confident Washington art goers will enjoy their work in February and in years to come."
Linda Button has been exploring the visual eloquence of Window Dressing through drawings and oil paintings that feature the multiple realities of mannequins and the reflections of pedestrians, architecture, sky, and bits of flora. Her work represents an avenue for narration of blatant and ambiguous themes. She especially enjoys painting the human body and finds humanoids fascinating. Linda finds inspiration from the reflected cityscape replete with arches, autos and occasional vegetation. These tableaus provide her with compelling opportunities to depict stories—fashionable or otherwise—that are all around us. Her paintings originate from photographs she has taken, most often in New York City. “I make a charcoal sketch of the photograph and use it as the basis for initiating the painting with oil bar on an abstracted multi-colored ground. The rest is painted with oil from tubes in layer upon layer. Naturally, the “windows” require much glazing, if not also gazing!" To contact Linda, please email bartleybutton@aol.com.
Lesley Clarke has been working recently, with wooden boxes as a base. She paints directly on the wood and incorporates layers of texture, adding and removing until she reaches the desired balance of contentment and tension. Lesley starts each painting simply by getting paint on the canvas and allowing the energy and the spontaneous flow of the paint to form the initial work. "Organically, I apply collage, graphite, pencil, spray paint, and various found objects to add texture and build layers. Depending on my mood while painting, I create art that can be soothing and peaceful or alive and bursting with color and life. My emotional inspirations come from a variety of sources including nature, music, personal experiences, and graffiti. I love to see how colors react with each other and the overall feeling a finished painting emits." Clarke employs acrylics, found objects, and related media to prepare abstract works that typically reflect complex, multi-themed visualizations. For further information, please visit www.lesleyclarkeart.com.
Peter Loge brings together found objects, slides, photographs, negatives and lights to highlight the arbitrary and fleeting nature of that of which we are certain. As our understanding of the world becomes increasingly post-modern, highlighting the importance of reproduction of copies over the production of the original “thing in itself,” the photographic negative takes on the role of industrial mold. Digitization and diffusion of media relegates photographs and slides to antique status; they now serve as reminders of what counted as what was, rather than as proof of what is. Peter draws attention to the longing for the image, and holds up the copy as the original, as the object of desire. As the proof of existence, the copy becomes existence. For further information, please visit www.PeterLoge.com.
Edward Bear Miller is consumed by a 21st-century admiration for our devastated natural world. Bridges, ships, and human forms in wild and urban-industrial spaces serve as motifs for contemplating humanity’s notions of liberation and progress in light of the biosphere’s diminishing robustness. His hope is that the canvas he is working on will graduate to become pure poetry of the spirit, but he generally settles for fresh, gritty paintings with soul. Painting for Bear resembles swimming. He plunges in and strokes away, exploring and processing the forms and tones he encounters until he either reaches a realm of strength and satisfaction or struggle to shore feeling weak and lost. Miller was born and raised in Washington, DC and paints local landscapes and urban-industrial spaces from life and from photos, depending on the weather. He also paints portraits and figures, often in familiar settings. For further information, please visit www.bearmiller.blogspot.com
The Gallery is located at 1314 18th St. NW, DC. For additional information call: 202-463-0203, email: foundrygallery@verizon.net or www.foundrygallery.org or join on Facebook.
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