Exhibition Dates:
* January 18 - February 26

First Tuesday ArtWalk:
* February 1, 5:30 - 7:30 pm

Desta Gallery is pleased to announce a new exhibition, "Solace," featuring new paintings by Donna McGinnis and Sheryl Daane Chesnut and new sculptures by Mary Oros on view from January 18 to February 26.

Donna McGinnis paints in the landscape and abstract genre. Her works are contemporary and modern in composition. Both styles of painting are developed in the same way. Neither the abstracts nor landscapes start with preconceived ideas. With the swirling of brushwork and layering of glazes, McGinnis creates her signature style of softness and a painting that glows from within.

Sheryl Daane Chesnut Artist Statement: Behind the veil of apparent randomness many of nature’s processes are highly ordered, following simple rules. Fractal properties are found in many natural phenomena: ocean waves, snowflakes, crystals, algae, and river networks. These qualities of ordered chaos find their way into my artwork.

With an experimental approach and a variety of organic and inorganic elements: salts and minerals, earth pigments and metals, solvents, polymers, ink, I consider myself an alchemist on canvas. I pour, layer and etch away.

I use color, line, texture and fluidity to engage the viewer from every angle. I strive to create work that is ephemeral and evocative, to embrace the fragility of the earth’s current state, and to help bring that beauty into spaces where we live and work.

Mary Oros has led careers in product design, creating contemporary concrete garden planters, contemporary cast bronze furniture hardware, and contemporary cast resin costume jewelry. All of Mary’s product lines have been sculptural. Sculpture is her first love, and she has always created sculpture alongside product, but now feels grateful and fortunate to be making sculpture full time.

My sculpture begins in response to a feeling. The feeling informs my visual direction, at which point I start drawing in my sketchbook or immediately in space with my armature materials. I’m attracted to natural forms and how they transition into one another, and the way they move through space. Dance also inspires me – the emotional expression as well as the choreographed form. I want my sculpture to feel alive, and it is important to me that it works well in the round. I want to walk around each piece and feel a continuum so that anywhere I pause, the expression is clear.