Prominent artists featured at Stremmel
by Brad Horn, Outpost Staff
The Stremmel Gallery's walls are lined with works of art from a handful of local artists along with pieces from New York, Los Angeles, and Bay area artists.
Jim McCormick, who has three mixed media pieces hanging in Stremmel, titled "SP Passing Through," "Scenes of Trains," and "Tower One," brings the art world his vision of Reno and its past.
McCormick, who taught art at the University of Nevada for 32 years, is one of the areas most important artists.
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Modern Art: Manuel Neri's "Pecadoras Series III" is a good representation of the artist's sculptures. Photo by Brad Horn |
"He is probably the most influential artist in the Great Basin," said Turkey Stremmel, owner of the gallery. "He deals with Reno in the past making art dealing with the Mapes, Riverside, and other landmarks."
In his work he uses map grids, old photos and postcards, pieces of tile, and draws and paints with pencil and airbrush.
Although most of the work in the gallery is paintings and mixed media, three modern sculptures fill the space.
Manuel Neri, a Bay area artist whose figurative sculpture has become known throughout the world, has two pieces on exhibit. His "Pecadoras Series III" piece, a small statue absent expression and limbless shows the human form, without the superficial aesthetic beauty our society usually attaches to it. His work is raw and expressive, pleading with the viewer to drop the notion of conventional interaction, asking his audience to look deeper into the human spirit. The marble Neri carves his work from is cut from the same mountain Michaelangelo used when he made his famous "David."
Another of Neri's pieces is untitled and sits six-feet tall in the window of Stremmel. While Neri uses paint sparingly on his figures, this one is draped with light brush stokes of yellow and blue. The color is used to define the contours of his sculpture.
"Neri is the most important Bay area figurative artist ever," Stremmel said. "When he exhibited in Washington D.C., he really turned heads on the East Coast changing their minds about the quality of West Coast artists. He gave West Coast artists credibility."
New York artist Morton Kaish's "Friendship Doors", a series of three paintings of oil on canvas, expose the sentiments of the South. Kaish is interested in the contrast between woods and metals, and in "Friendship Doors" the artist reveals in detail the texture of these elements against each other. He adds American flags using light colors and creates rich textures by layering thick steel locks and latches to seal the content of his work on the canvas. Kaish adds small antique vases on the shelves in his pieces. His work is full of life and experience.
Another New York artist featured at the Stremmel is Robert Kushner. His "Summer Bouquet" collection is full of pastel colors, rich purples and pinks, set against black and gold backgrounds framed by pinks fading to purple.
"Kushner is a New York artist who help pioneer the pattern and design movement in the '60s and '70s," Stremmel said.
The flowers in Kushner's work move freely whether in bloom, or blown by the wind. His lilies float on water or in the breeze. His images are always in motion.
The pattern and design movement, an important aspect in all his work, is art created in two perspectives. Kushner's backgrounds are solid patterns used to illuminate his detailed images. In this collection, the flower's movement is accentuated by the rich pattern created by the artist.
Los Angeles artist Michael Todd who has exhibited in the Whitney Museum in New York, the American Cultural Center in Paris, France, and every other important gallery in the U.S. since 1961 adds his modern sculpture to the Stemmel. His piece "Ochola I" is cast in Bronze, patinated. Todd uses found metal, pieces he just picks up in junkyards to create his work. The Japanese circle of life motif influences him. Todd uses spills, a process where the hot molten metal is thrown down on the floor, randomly taking form. He mimics the shape of these spills, bending and twisting metal and then adding color through process of patination. Patinating is like painting on bronze. Todd pours acid on different areas of his work when it is warm, creating shades of aqua, black, and earth tones.
Michael Todd's work breaks the mold of modern sculpture. His work is abstract rather than figurative, open rather than closed, and dependent on a series of random incidents rather than stuck in stuffy narration.
Posted March 6, 2000
Copyright 2000 Nevada Oupost