New Exhibit Steps Outside Valley

By Marcy Stamper
copyright Methow Valley News - Jan 16, 2008

Gain a new perspective on the world and on artistic expression through Confluence Gallery’s new exhibit, “Another View, Artists from Beyond the Methow.”Curator Carol Campbell conceived of the show as a way of “enlivening the artistic conversation in the valley and offering another perspective on creativity.”

Features artists include photographer Mike Irwin, a former valley resident now based in Wenatchee. Irwin seeks out surprising takes on his world by wondering down unexplored streets at dawn or driving along roads that undulate across plowed fields. “For me, that’s when the world’s grand design reveals itself,” he said. In many of his photos, Irwin captures the patterned furrows of agricultural fields and the shapes created by plowed earth and irrigated pastures.

Also featured is mixed media painter Joanne Hammer. Hammer depicts stylized animals and nature in a flattened perspective using a deep, earthy palette. In many of her works, human and animal forms float above a layered landscape. Based on Vashon Island, Hammer is influenced by the themes and complex imagery of Northwest native art and culture.

Marita Dingus is an internationally known Seattle-based artist who examines such subjects as slavery and poverty through mixed-media sculptures made from discarded materials. While Dingus tackles serious issues in her art, the aesthetics are delicate and often whimsical, as she twines wire, beads, flowers, glass and fabric to create small figures that resemble jeweled reliquaries.

Nathan DiPietro is a young artist who works in egg tempera, creating small paintings that suggest early American miniatures tweaked with a strong surrealistic bent. Di Pietro is intrigued by the span of art history. Some of his stylized figures recall religious triptychs in their framing and settings. Other works comment on erosion – physical and cultural – through closely cropped shapes and stylized forms.

Painter Peggy Coats also emphasizes narrative in her work, telling stories that show her interest in surprising juxtapositions and surrealism. Working in acrylics, Coats depicts domestic scenes, people at work and at play, and dreamlike imagery. Some of her colorful canvases suggest devotional paintings with their allegorical objects and body parts surrounded by auras.

Sculptor Roger Feldman, with his background in theology and art education, has always been intrigued by the connections between art and spirituality. He will exhibit maquettes of his site-specific sculptures, which explore the juncture of space, illusion and reality in metal, wood, concrete and cement.

“Another View” runs from Jan. 19 through March 1. For more information call 997-2787.