Contact: Art Works Downtown

Phone: (415) 451-8119



12pm PST, July 27, 2012


“ORGANIC INTENTIONS” SCULPTURAL WORKS BY

MARI ANDREWS | MARY BUTTON-DURELL | PATRICIA STROUD

August 10 – September 28, 2012

Reception: August 10,  5 – 8pm


ART WORKS DOWNTOWN

1337 Fourth Street

San Rafael, CA 94901

Phone (415) 451-8119

Web: ArtWorksDowntown.org


Art Works Downtown presents the relationship of form to nature through the homologous language of three original Bay Area sculptors; Mari Andrews, Mary Button-Durell and Patricia Stroud with the exhibition “Organic Intentions” August 10 – September 28, 2012.  

Mari Andrews has been making objects from natural materials (stones, twigs, seeds, pods and lichen) for over 20 years. Mary Button Durell creates almost all of her works from tracing paper and wheat paste, relying on the properties of light and translucency to help create biomorphic forms and patterns that suggest sub-aquatic and even cellular worlds. Patricia Lyons Stroud creates forms referencing elements of structures fond within nature and the human body in her works of wood, gypsum cement, sand and beeswax.

“Organic Intentions”, opening reception is during 2nd Fridays Art Walk, August 10, 5-8pm. There will be a second reception on September 14, during 2nd Fridays Art Walk, also 5-8pm. Art Works Downtown is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday, 10am to 5pm. For more information, please contact: Art Works Downtown, 1337 Fourth St., San Rafael, CA Phone: 415-451-8119 Website: ArtWorksDowntown.org


 

About Mari Andrews:

Mari Andrews maintains a studio in Emeryville where her work has

evolved out of drawing and obsessive collecting of human and

natural detritus found from city walks to strolls in the parks and

beaches. Andrews weaves these two passions together in her

annealed steel wire sculptures with the black wire acting as a pencil

line, accentuating, connecting or transforming a found object into

something else. She finds that having collected many of these items

her self brings a special sense of wonder and intimacy to each piece.

Andrews refers to her art works as “three-dimensional drawings” and

“paperless drawings”. Many of these works hang on the wall

together, and recall a series of symbols or a visual language like

hieroglyphics. Andrews says the materials she finds often cause her

to change direction in her work based on their unique forms or

qualities. Mari has an MFA from Otis Art Institute, Parson’s School

of design and has been awarded numerous fellowships, awards and

residencies. She has been an instructor and guest lecturer for over

twenty years.
 

 

About Mary Button Durell:

Mary Button Durell is a San Francisco based-artist who has created

her works solely from tracing paper and wheat paste for more than

20 years. Both her wall and floor sculptures are featured in “Organic

Intentions”. Due to the transparent nature of the material, tracing

paper, Durell’s works tend to interact with light and create interior

and exterior shapes, while the surfaces may look like oyster shell or

marble. Her structures, hand-built with no wire frame, are organic

and built upon each previous shape, joined to gether, cell by cell. It is

no wonder they are frequently compared to cellular life. Most of

Durell’s earlier works tend to stay true to the color of the paper and

paste itself, however this show has a series of wall pieces that have a

bright orange color, an almost neon accent of acrylic paint

accentuating the lines at the edge of a shape. The accents draw

attention and suddenly, there is a hint of a red jelly fish moving in the

ocean, or a blue cell nucleus in the middle of a field of white tissue.

These highlights of color do just that; they draw your attention and

then you are further moved into a concave shape to see what’s inside,

or to follow the edges of a fold of crinkled paper to see a special

shadow or interaction with light.
 

 

About Patricia Lyons Stroud:

Patricia Lyons Stroud’s woodworks will share the floor and walls with

the light and airy works of Andrews and Durell. By the very nature

of the materials Stroud uses (wood, cement and beeswax), her work

has a more immediate physical presence and sense of weight.

However, Stroud’s works are contemporary, and abstract, also

drawing on nature as inspiration. Her works range from forms that

mimick the spine of invertebrates, celebrate the spikes and texture of

sea corrals, the smooth, wavy surfaces of fungi and the slithering,

snaking of giant nemotodes climbing up a gallery wall (ie.. “The Way

In” from 1995). An obvious master of her craft, Stroud has

developed this vocabulary of surface and form creation well for

almost forty years. She began exhibiting as a painter in the early

1970’s but was drawn to begin sculpture by a teacher in San

Francisco who helped her learn to express herself as a sculptor. Her

work has been show exclusively in California, where she has been

represented by the Triangle Gallery in San Francisco since 1989.

Stroud’s woodworks will be on display, alongside Andrews and

Durell’s, in “Organic Intentions” through September 28th at Art

Works Downtown.

 

Also featured at Art Works Downtown on August 10 is Megan Kenyon

in the Underground Gallery on our lower level.

 

“Organic Intentions”, as well as Megan Kenyon's exhibit in the Underground Gallery, and several of 35 artist studios, will all be open and on display at Art Works Downtown during 2nd Fridays Art Walk, August 10, 5-8pm. There will be a second reception on September 14, during 2nd Fridays Art Walk, also 5-8pm. Art Works Downtown is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday, 10am to 5pm. For more information, please contact: Art Works Downtown, 1337 Fourth St., San Rafael, CA Phone: 415-451-8119 Website: ArtWorksDowntown.org


_____________

Colleen Proppé
Communications Coordinator
colleen@artworksdowntown.org

art works downtown | 1337 fourth street | san rafael  94901 | 415.451.8119