Viveza Art Experience, in seattle presents "Arterial: Organic Intersections of the New Cityscape." This exhibit runs through February 21 to March 18, 2007 With different collection types works by three artist; award-winning artist Christopher Santer, mixed-media artist Brian Scott Campbell and prolific painter Jeff Koegel. All three artists attendened at the opening reception held 6 to 10 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 23.
Each artist has their own, unique way of engaging the viewer When taken together, these works emphasize a shift in ideas about urban living and the environment.
Jeff Koegel Uses a patchwork method, Koegel covers portions of his canvases as he paints so that he can't compare what he's creating with what he's created. This "blindness" produces unintended results.
"The paintings might look carefully planned out, but actually I begin with only a partial drawing, which the painting is built on, altered and developed instinctively," he said. The results are contradictory landscapes --smokestacks or volcanoes emit noxious, billowing clouds that trace the outline of a futuristic spaceship, a fantastic cityscape, an ancient temple or vascular forms that could be tree trunks, ventricles, or a cross section of metropolitan plumbing.
Brian Scott Campbell also focuses on unfolding cityscapes and alteration of living spaces. He made use of manmade and natural environments in several mediums, including painting, drawing, sculpture and animation. Glaciers melt, and drip, towers, highways and fences are built, and brush strokes are outlined in graphite.
Drawing much of his inspiration from the drawings and schematics of the great engineer, painter and naturalist, Leonardo da Vinci, Campbell presents the viewer with a world that is, at once, organic and industrial.
Deanna Lee Edwards
www.absolutearts.com
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