Artist owned ARTAMO LLC is proud to announce the opening of ARTAMO Gallery, the new contemporary art destination in Santa Barbara. Located only 100 yards from the Museum of Art, ARTAMO Gallery contributes to the revival of the historical downtown art district and helps to build up a gallery row on Anapamu Street. The gallery will celebrated their enterprise with a reception in the evening of Sunday, March 20. ARTAMO Gallery will show contemporary art by regional, national and international artists in solo and group exhibitions, including paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photography and mixed media. In its initial year the gallery presents works by Ann Baldwin, Teri Blodgett, John Goetz, Gordon Huether, Françoise Issaly, Pat Kenny, Hanna Merians, Jack N. Mohr, Michael Moon, and Rimi Yang.
ARTAMO Gallery will take part in local art events and plans to stage themed group exhibitions that include local artists. Lectures and workshops on visual art, literature and poetry are also on the list of future activities.
FEATURED ARTISTS
ANN BALDWIN
Born in London, England, Ann Baldwin lived there until 1990 when she came to the San Francisco Bay with her husband. There she took up painting after being a teacher of Literature. Self-taught at that stage, she decided to attend art classes at the College of Marin. Meanwhile she experimented with all kinds of different media breaking all the rules she could, developing her own, unique form of abstract expressionism.
In 2001 Ann began encaustic painting on wood panels. Over time her work has become more and more abstract, but it still contains fragments of text, a visual reminiscence of her long relationship with literature.
TERI BLODGETT
Teri Blodgett, born in Alameda, California, was raised in Napa and lives there again after some time in Arkansas.
Back in college in 1993 to study general education, a photography class completely captivated her attention and Teri decided to pursue a career in art. She graduated from holding two Associate Degrees with honors and transferred to Dominican University in San Rafael, California where she received the highly coveted Art Merit Award and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts with magna cum laude. Teri later traveled to Florence, Italy and studied at the Lorenzo De’ Medici Art Institute.
Teri’s knowledge in photography excelled with her exploration of different techniques, such as hand color-ing of black and white photographs, which later led to some of her most thought-provoking pieces. Today Teri is widely known for her mixed media paintings, as well as her portraits and hand colored photography.
JOHN GOETZ
John Goetz, born in Basel, Switzerland, and grew up in Canada. His parents moved there when he was seven. He studied at the Sheridan College of Art & Design and also at the Ontario College of Art, both in Toronto, Canada. He lives and works in Santa Monica, California.
GORDON HUETHER
Born in Rochester, New York to German immigrant parents, Gordon Huether learned art composition and art appreciation at an early age from his father. Huether founded his studio in Napa, California in 1987.
1997 Huether became permanent artist-in-residence at Artesa winery. The dramatic architecture of the winery created a perfect environment for him to exhibit his fine art and sculpture. Through his many commissions, public art projects, and art exhibitions, Huether has developed an innate sensitivity to and mastery of a variety of media.
FRANÇOISE ISSALY
Françoise Issaly, born and raised in France, lived in Canada before moving to Los Angeles. She studied at the Universities of Montpellier and Bordeaux, France where she earned her M.A. in Plastic Arts.
Inspired by the Buddhist philosophy of the middle path she creates visual spaces where realities overlap. Each of her compositions are made of squares, circles and/or triangles that seem to be individually linked but are separated by neutral space. Everything is happening in the encountering, the correspondences, the missing and suggested spaces. They are multiplying, unfolding in many directions (physical, mental and spiritual).
Francoise Issaly has been a Premiere Portfolio Artist at absolutearts.com since January 2002. View more of her artwork at http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/f/fissaly/.
PAT KENNY
Born 1924, noted award-winning artist Pat Kenny, also known as Pat Lopez, has a long and distinguished career in ceramics. Pat Kenny was educated at Alfred University, New York (at that time the only ceramics college in the US) and was apprenticed to the famous Viennese Art Deco Sculptor Vally Wieselthier when a teenager. In the 1940s and 1950s she participated in the great changes in ceramic art.
Pat Kenny always takes special pride in carefully developing and producing her own one of a kind glazes. Because of hand injuries she had to stop all ceramic work for a long period but now she is back, better than ever, with new ideas, exciting concepts, and daring techniques.
Today Pat Kenny works in her studio in Santa Barbara, California.
HANNA MERIANS
Hanna Merians was born in Tiberias, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Shortly after the founding of the State of Israel, she was sent to Paris to complete her studies. Her first serious work was done during a following four year stay in the far east.
1961 Hanna Merians moved to the United States and studied at the San Francisco Academy of Fine Arts, earning her Bachelor’s degree in 1965. She also studied at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia and at the University of Madrid. 1969 to 1973 Hanna worked at the Center for Contemporary Graphic Arts in Geneva and with Pietro Sarto in St. Prex, Switzerland. She also lived four years in Singapore with travels to Indonesia to study Batik with local masters.
Hanna Merians died of cancer on March 29, 1991 in her house in Sausalito, California.
JACK N. MOHR
Born in Berlin, Germany, Jack N. Mohr earned a Masters’ degree in Graphic Design at the State University for Creative Arts in Berlin. He came to California in 1997.
Mohr is mainly known for his abstract expressionistic paintings, his ceramic wall-sculptures, and for using or combining uncommon materials in his work to cross the line between two- and three-dimensionality.
IMAGE
John Mohr has been a Premiere Portfolio Artist at absolutearts.com since July 2002. View more of his work at: http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/j/jnmohr/
MICHAEL MOON
Michael Moon, born and raised in Southern California, always wanted to be an artist since second grade.
After finishing his M.A. in Educational Psychology, he began a combination of formal study of art at Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, and UCLA combined with his own experimentation and process in which he explored his attraction to painting.
Influenced by El Greco’s passion, the impressionist’s love of color, and the expressionist’s love of paint, for the next nine years he painted essentially in solitude. During this time, influenced by Eastern thought and the practice of meditation, he began to integrate Eastern and Western thought in the symbolism of his paintings. For him, the process is even more important than the product.
RIMI YANG
Rimi Yang is a Korean, born and raised in Japan. She studied at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, the California State University, Los Angeles, and at Otis College of Art & Design, also in Los Angeles, California. She extended her studies taking classes at the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art, and by attending the summer program at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy.
She lives in Los Angeles, California, and works on her art full-time at the Santa Monica Art Studios.
IMAGE
Jack Mohr
Double Square Red
2004
Mixed Media
20 x 24 inches
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