Chris Adessa, Susan Spies

First Tuesday ArtWalk:
* March 1, 5:30 – 7:30 pm

March Art Exhibits

Lobby Exhibit:  Chris Adessa – Veiled Vistas

Chris Adessa’s “Veiled Vistas” series began during a plein air painting session on a stunning ranch in far northwest Marin some years ago. Overlooking the pasture were long stands of trees planted in the 1800’s, that framed the landscape.

That experience inspired her to paint the scene that day and later to explore the notion of “seeing beyond” as a subject.  

In her paintings, the places “seen beyond” are imagined and read as feelings as well as visually.  The sun, the mist, the wind on your cheek are all evoked, just as in her 30 years of plein air landscape painting out in the field. 

She says, “Painting Veiled Vistas is a meditative process of give and take … painting back and forth between the veil and the vista until it says what I want it to say, and what I hope a viewer will enjoy.  And maybe you too will get lost in the painting, just as I do as I paint.”

Crescendo Exhibit:  Susan Spies – Wanderings

Color, tone and hue predominate these works that exploit the inherent movement of paint. My process begins with color, building up layers of opacity and translucence to explore the subtleties and range of tone; pushing and pulling to create layered, atmospheric spaces. The environments created are the liminal spaces that always captivate me; the places where man and nature, land and sky, and reality and perception intersect.

Susan Spies received her B.F.A. from the University of Michgan School of Art, and has maintained a studio practice for over 20 years in her studio at the edge of the San Francisco Bay.