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NOW SHOWING!

 

November 2006 Featured Artists

 

Onega Astaltsova, paintings; Charlie Barmonde, ceramics; Barbara Shema, fabric & mixed media

 

 

 

Onega Astaltsova

 

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Thank you for coming to the DeBlois Gallery. I have been studying art in many forms since I was 13 years old. I draw from my education at the renowned Abramtsevo Artistic College and the Moscow Institute of Fashion Technology. This diverse background has enabled me to work in different styles and mediums.

The presented works are united by a decorative theme. The goal of each piece is the elevation of mood in modern interiors and offices. To achieve this sensation, I avoid linear perspective. I flatten the piece emphasizing one dimension and a certain calmness.

Regardless of the subject I add texture to emphasize richness and depth of one plane. The result, the viewer experiences a harmony between his or herself, the work and the room.

 The Black Sea, acrylic

 

 

Charlie Barmonde

 

 

 

 ARTIST'S STATEMENT

    The ends of a pot are its lip and foot.  It can  have a belly, shoulders, a neck or a mouth .   The anthropomorphic vocabulary  of the craft speaks to its deep and ancient connection with humanity.  A connection I  feel through the sensuality of the process and the reward of creation.  
    Daniel Rhodes  says “Pottery as a meditation, as selfless concentration, requires the abandonment of anxiety and the perfection of ones skill to the point where ones consciousness becomes absorbed  in the tactile sensation  of process”.  
    I think that the pot of great value is that which brings the user into the present,  enabling the observer  the same relief from consciousness that creation provides the potter.  The ultimate judgment on any piece of art is based on the intensity of the relationship between the work of art and its user.  
    My pottery is designed to be used.  My hope is that in its use it allows for a level of intimacy not often found in objects, utilitarian or otherwise.

    I consider my current body of work fossils.  This is for a number of reasons.  After having spent several  years working commercially as a high volume production potter, I have returned to more archaic processes.  In  my studio there is no division of labor.   Every task is performed by myself as a studio potter, much as it was before the industrialized era.  Aesthetically, my inspiration comes from the sea.  The mysterious forms found in ancient sea beds and caves  have inspired a  gestalt which  is reminiscent  of fossilized flora and fauna.   The weather, the shape of waves, and my own  knowledge as a mariner result in hydrodynamic forms,  part vessel and  part of the sea itself.   Both  the process and the artwork itself recall an ancient manner of working and being.

Barbara Shema

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

Over the past several years, I've been pushing the boundaries between various art processes… photography, painting and collage.  Most recently my work has been influenced by an attraction to the rich colors and bold contrasting textures and patterns of upholstery fabric…taking me in a new direction by incorporating pieces of painted canvas and photographs into the fabric wall hangings in this show.  

I've also been doing research on my mother’s family genealogy, and the history of my grandmother's native country, Czechoslovakia.  Finding my grandmother’s name on a ship’s manifest when she emigrated to America in 1911 was a wonderful surprise.  As I learned more about where and how my grandmother arrived here, I gained a new perspective about what must have been the adventure, and hardship, of my grandmother's emigration.  I have been looking, with new eyes, at the relationship between my grandmother and mother…and my relationship to both of them, and to the world…which informs some of the work you see here.  

My husband and I moved to Rhode Island from Pittsburgh five years ago, and we now call Providence home.  I work part-time at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University and also facilitate a weekly art workshop with adult immigrants and refugees who are learning English at the Genesis Center in Providence.   

The rest of the time I spend in my wonderfully messy studio making art from the diverse materials scattered around the room.

 

Fallen Angel

Mother Daughter Mother
Remembered Landscape Sunset
Tea & Twigs

 

 Vanished