March 16 - April 20, 2019
March 16, 2019
Artists Talk, 3 - 4 pm
Opening Reception, 4 - 5 pm
CAS Arts Center, 48 Main Street, Livingston Manor, New York
Bobbie Oliver, Untitled, 2019.
Magaly Perez, Untitled, 2017.
Bobbie Oliver
Bobbie Oliver is a painter residing in both New York City and Long Eddy, NY. Oliver’s painting is direct and gestural, establishing a direct relationship between the material and the hand. The artist sites Chinese landscape painting, Japanese calligraphy, Morandi, Guston and Roman fresco painting as influences. Paying close attention to how the paint sits on the surface, whether it sits on top or sinks in, whether it feels better to blot some off and put that which is blotted off elsewhere on the painting, whether thinning the paint to a wash or make it richer and denser; all rather ordinary activities that get addressed until slowly a tactile kind of space and simplicity emerges. Her paintings go deeper into the nature of abstraction, focusing on the materials and how the paintings are physically made. The presence of gesture is important as it allows one to re-think things and look for relationships in accidents. Oliver prefers the idea of something evolving as then there is a sense of emotion and vulnerability in its making and encourages the viewers to see it on their own terms.
Magaly Perez
Magaly Perez is a painter residing in Callicoon, NY. Perez is inspired by her work as both a painter and gardener, with much of her paintings originated from feelings about and observations of the natural world. The artist’s painterly investigation is triggered by natural phenomena such as light at dusk in the garden or a swarm of bees around a hive, abstract rather than literal. The artist sites Tantric art, gardens and domestic architecture as inspiration. These disciplines often begin with schematic plans that define a space, either spiritual or physical, sometimes both. Tantric art interests her as a visual representation of a cosmic order. It’s the resolution of opposing forces. Gardens offer a means of ordering nature and integrating an area to the larger landscape. Her interest in domestic architecture is an expression of the artist’s longing for a home in the world. Being born in Cuba and coming to the U.S., her life was informed by extremes. Making and looking at art offers a way of balancing and ordering the artist’s world: shifting scale and perspective, seeing both the forest and the tree. Balancing both the organic with the artifice of the manmade.