Join us on December 5th from 5-7pm for an Artist Reception and Mill Valley's First Tuesday Artwalk featuring artist Alan Mazzetti in the Theatre Gallery and Britta Kathmeyer in the Crescendo Gallery.
Theatre Gallery: ALAN MAZZETTI
Artist Statement
My paintings continue to explore the relationship between Representation and Abstraction. Subjects are selected from my California environment, often from the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live and work. These rural and urban images serve as the starting point for the painting process.
My perspective for most of the work is from a high, distant vantage point which emphasizes the flat quality and patterns I like to depict in the compositions. For the urban images, this results in a view of buildings seemingly adjacent, but actually distant from each other. I enjoy the idea of this as an alternate reality – true from a certain point of view, and conceptually abstracted. With the landscapes, I use the distant point of view and seek subjects that have a natural linearity to them – fields, roads, rows of trees. Enough detail is suggested to re-present the scale and character of the subject, whether buildings or fields, yet the primary emphasis is on composition, color and mood.
While the work has easily identifiable subject matter, my main concern is the act of painting. Evidence remains of initial sketching, mark-making, sequential refinements, masking and layering. Further abstraction is achieved through atmospheric perspective and by the degree of development in different sections of the painting. Through the masking and selective editing, I leave traces of previous stages, and it is not uncommon to find a section of pencil sketch on white gesso next to a heavily worked painted area.
For me, this evidence of process implies a sense of transition. This is evident in the landscapes with the juxtaposition of organic and constructed forms, or with mark-making that implies motion. There is often a sense of passing through the scene. The urban subjects show the change in styles and ages of the structures – the transition of society and of the city itself. The idea of transition is further depicted by the visibility of all stages in the process – from blank panel to completed painting.
This journey is the essence of all my work – the movement through time and space that ultimately arrives at an unexpected destination for both myself and the viewer.
Crescendo Gallery: BRITTA KATHMEYER
Britta Kathmeyer (born in Bremen, Germany, 1963) received a diploma in Textile Design from the College of Art and Design, Hannover, in 1988. She continued her studies in the U.S. on a Fulbright scholarship and graduated from the California College of the Arts, Oakland, with an MFA with high distinction in 1991.
For many years Britta worked as a textile designer in the Bay Area and at the same time exhibited her artwork in galleries in both Germany and the U.S. She has collaborated on various projects with artists and non-artists alike, including a public art project funded by the San Francisco Arts Commission. Since 2012 her focus has shifted to drawing and painting primarily using ink, coffee, matches and acrylics. Her intention is to create art that moves between ambiguity and revelation, and inspires contemplation and curiosity. Her work is influenced and guided by Eastern philosophy, the observation of nature, and often the inherent characteristics of the materials themselves. She lives in Sonoma County.
