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"This is an energetic, almost frenetic piece that evokes a feeling of unease. The artist is fully in control of the piece, in spite of it's buzzing, whirring activity. The soft colors belie the "dangerous whimsy" of the piece."
The awards juror, Ms. Marilyn Stasiak, Art Curator of the Neville Public Museum in Green Bay, WI, was pleased with the depth of the show and shared some of her comments on the selections:
Christine Alfery's gallery show is carefree, impulsive, colorful
Published: Sunday, September 26, 2010, 2:23 PM
Special to The Birmingham News
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by James R. Nelson
Christine Alfery. Mixed Media Paintings. Monty Stabler Galleries. 1811 29th Ave. South. Through Sept. 28.
What a happy show this is! Christine Alfery’s works are carefree, implusive, vivacious, sometimes monochromatic, more often colorful, and always executed with a touch of humor. A stroll through the gallery is like walking in an English garden, a place where colorful plants turn space into a freewheeling exploration of nature.
Paintings like this one help turn Christine Alfery's exhibit into an English Garden.
A trio of relatively small works, “still life with pears,” “still life with oranges” and “still life with three green apples,” explode with bright colors. “Fall grasses” have gay, loopy blobs of color scribbled over casual black stems.
“She rides her pony in the Memorial Day parade” erupts like a volcanic still life. Orange and green and red blobs pour forth with all the colorful energy of a small town parade. “Kites I” and “II” capture the flight and fitful soaring and dipping of kites on strings. “Rolley Rolley Rolley” is a monochromatic exercise that can suggest yarn balls or, with her use of white stripes and black lines, an outdoor clothesline in snowy winter with the fabrics snapping in the wind.
Using the grisaille technique of shades of gray in “Nest I” and “Nest II,” Alfery scribbles descriptions of two empty nests. The first contains stone-like eggs, the other is empty, with a soft feather resting near its perimeter. These works inspire pensive contemplation and send the imagination into fantasies about wild birds in nature.
Article By Gay Scheffen
News Of The North.net
This rosy cheeked woman with a “Pepsodent” smile looks like your friendly, pie-baking neighbor – a mom, a kayaker, a community volunteer. In fact, Christine Alfery is all these things and in addition, the Fine Art Chairperson of the Howard Young Art Gallery in the Howard Young Medical Center in Woodruff.
Alfery is also one of the finest contemporary abstract expressionists in the country, a title which brings up visions of the likes of genre artists: Jackson Pollock, a volatile, reclusive alcoholic; Willem de Kooning, another alcoholic artist whose work sometimes bordered on the grotesque; and the complex, Robert Raushenberg, who wanted to work “in the gap between art and life.” These artists had the image of being rebellious, anarchic and highly idiosyncratic.
Alfrey does not possess the demons of her predecessors and, in fact, believes that her acrylic and watercolor paintings are divinely inspired. She says “there is something extremely beautiful and powerful within me that emerges when I paint.” She embraces it and treasures it. Her art is more about the emotional experience than the physical reality.
Post Modernist Abstract Expressionism began in America in the 1940s, emphasizing the freedom of emotional expression, technique and execution. This is what one sees in the elegant lines of abstraction and heightened color in Alfery’s paintings. Her work shows a kind of liberation, a spontaneity and, at the same time, a sense of peacefulness. She finds that same kind of peace in her flower garden at her lakeside home in Lac du Flambeau.
Alfery was born in Beloit, WI., the middle child with a stay-at-home mom, who was creative but too busy to put time into art. “In kindergarten I made a snowman that was beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that it won first place in the all city school art show for ages 5-6,” Alfery said. “Ever since that time I knew I wanted to be an artist. In first grade I found it very difficult to color within the lines. I was happiest with a blank piece of paper to draw on, rather than a coloring book. Ever since then I knew that I wanted to create things I imagined - and not things others imagined.”
There were no art classes in Alfery’s grade school. Her teacher found a radio show that taught art and used it to instruct her pupils. During her junior and senior year in high school she was given a scholarship to study art at Beloit College. She was dyslexic, as she thinks many creative people are, and believes wholeheartedly in ”hearing, seeing, tactile and multiple ways of learning.”
Alfery taught at Red Pine Camp as a teen and met her husband there. They would hang out at the “Woodshed,” now the Black Bear. The married couple made Evansville, WI. (between Janesville and Madison) their home for 40 years and raised their two children there (a boy and girl - both creative.) Alfrey attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison and received a BA, and MA, an MFA and two Ph.Ds in Art, Art Education and Art History.
She taught at the University of Wisconsin, was the curator in charge of installation of artwork in the Teachers Educational Building and a docent at the UW Elvehjem Museum of Art and the Madison Art Center. She created lesson plans for visual learners in math and other subjects and taught K-12 teachers how to put art in their classrooms. “As a teacher, you have to move on the assumption that you may not have an actual artroom. Struggle is important. There is drama and turmoil and chaos in life.”
Alfery has paintings in major collections across America. She shows in galleries in Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina and Florida. The list of awards she has won is lengthy and impressive. Her subject matter is inspired by the natural landscapes and things in life she dearly loves. Reviewers have called her work “delightful,” “visually compelling,” “carefree,” “impulsive,” “vivacious,” and “a kinesthetic experience for the viewer.”
Alfery had a summer home in Northern Wisconsin and upon his retirement, her husband announced that he wanted to move there. She said, “I told him there is no studio there. I’m staying here. So he lured me here with a promise to build me a studio.“ They made the move a little over two years ago. Numerous trips to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, Lake Superior and northwest Ontario are part of their life, although Alfery has said she is “through with portaging.” Whitewater kayaking has taken them to Greenland, Chile, the Northwest Territory, Hudson Bay and the Arctic Circle.
She is a member of the Lakeland and Manito Art Leagues; the American, National and Wisconsin. Watercolor Societies; and the Wisconsin Visual Arts Society. Her work is shown in galleries throughout the NorthWoods and her gallery is part of the Northwoods Art Tour, 7/29-31 and 10/7-9. Her website is http://christinealfery.com/ and phone:715-588-7115.
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