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Visitors to the Firehouse Arts Center in downtown Pleasanton can immerse themselves in the warm weather season ahead during the upcoming exhibition featuring artworks that Harrington Gallery officials say “embrace and evoke the brimming excitement and bright hues of a summer holiday.”
A group showing for the Santa Clara County-based Allied Artists West, “Colors of Summer” opens this weekend and runs into July with nearly 100 pieces of art interpreting the seasonal theme in a range of mediums including oil, acrylic, watercolor and pastel.
“Reminiscent of the scenes one might come across during a summer road trip, visitors are able to enjoy everything from a breezy day in San Francisco to the crisp air of a forest stroll,” Harrington Gallery curator Sydney Tang told the Weekly. “Capturing the leisure and child-like wonder that comes with vacations and summertime explorations, this exhibition embodies the blissful ease associated with the warmer months.”
With 20 members participating in the exhibition, Allied Artists West boasts nationally recognized and emerging gallery artists who have won a variety of awards, displayed their works in art showings and juried competitions and/or teach their techniques in classes or demonstrations, according to gallery officials.
“The collective work of the group reflects a diversity of techniques and approaches,” they added.
The artist group includes creators like Kaaren Marquez, whose “Making Waves” is among the works being displayed in the Harrington Gallery.
On the AAW website, Marquez says she strives “to reimagine traditional landscape painting to offer a fresh view of the world.”
“Drawing inspiration from my international travels and Bay Area explorations, I incorporate distorted perspectives, exaggerated forms and curvilinear shapes to craft whimsical landscapes filled with joyful color and energy — providing viewers with a dynamic experience of moving through a landscape both physically and visually,” she added in her artist’s statement online.
Leslie Landers, with “On the Boardwalk” and “Sailing Toward Alcatraz” among her paintings in the exhibition, describes herself online as a fifth-generation Californian who aims “to convey a sense of dynamic optimism” while “savoring the beauty that is found in Northern California” through her art.
And with “interpretive expressions of landscape and florals in oil with various levels of abstraction,” AAW member David Chisessi works to build upon the “close connection” he feels with a natural subject like the sea or California hills” and then “uses nature as a point of departure to explore the incredible color, texture and transparency range of oils to create an emotional impression of the scene or object,” according to his artist’s bio online.
The city-operated art gallery will host an opening reception for “Colors of Summer” this Saturday (June 1) from 1-3 p.m. inside the arts center at 4444 Railroad Ave. The AAW exhibition continues until July 27. To learn more, visit firehousearts.org.
