SILVIA LEVENSON, LORRAINE PELTZ + NICOLE SCHMOELZER

Opening 2 March
Reception 4 March
Exhibition through 1 May

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - 21 February 2010 (for immediate release)
Micaëla Gallery is proud to present "SILVIA LEVENSON, LORRAINE PELTZ + NICOLE SCHMOELZER," a multi-media exhibition showcasing artworks by three talented artists, Silvia Levenson (Italy), Lorraine Peltz (Chicago), and Nicole Schmoelzer (Switzerland), whose work takes a unique approach to issues of women's fantasies, ideas of beauty, and modern day living interpreted through mediums of sculpture, paint, and video.

Lorraine Peltz's recent paintings are complex ruminations on the nature of private identity and public persona. Using imagery culled from both personal history and the contemporary moment, they reference both past and present. The image of a chandelier conjures a remembered culture and the patterned flowers, starbursts, and decorative flourishes present the now - particularly women's fantasy and desires - through pure painterly pleasure.

Nicole Schmoelzer works with paint on linen and paper, developing a number of series whose topic is the very behavior of color itself. In Schmoelzer's paintings, the color yellow plays in important role. As she states, "...partly because it is extremely difficult to replicate, its presence an act of resistance to the age of mechanical (and digital) reproduction... It is also an evocative color with a wide range of associations, foremost of which, perhaps, is light: like sun breaking through, implying heat, energy, life."

Silvia Levenson's sculpture presents a dark and comic vision of modern home life, by re-fashioning house wares and pharmaceuticals in candy-colored glass. In her work, a standard IKEA chair with a kiln-cast seat is placed on a floor of fused, iridescent glass tiles, sandblasted with the names of common antidepressants. The pastel colors used by Levenson for the tiles convey a certain idea of calm and relaxation, in contrast to the names of medicines. In the background, there is a projected video piece, "Everything is OK," which she made with her daughter, Natalia Saurin.

Image credits:
Above left: Nicole Schmoelzer. Staining 1109-132, 2010. Oil on Linen, 70 x 60 in.
Above right: Lorraine Peltz. Chandelier Black, 2010. Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 40 x 40 in.
Left: Silvia Levenson. Life Strategies, 2009. Installation: Glass, found object, video. 70 x 70 in.

A print exhibition catalog, PDF exhibition catalog, photographs and high resolution images are available upon request.

Thai Bui: Spark | KQED Public Media for Northern CA

• View Spark segment on Thai Bui. Original air date: June 2005. (Running Time: 7:59)
• Watch Video
• Play Real Media

"I think that represents two nature forces, negative and positive, and also it can be yin and yang, and it may be black and white, and also become united."-- Thai Bui

• Vietnamese-born sculptor Thai Bui makes haunting works of art that speak to a sense of displacement and longing that has characterized the artist's own turbulent life. Bui's extraordinary objects combine references to his experiences in both the United States and Vietnam, simultaneously communicating a witty humor and penetrating sense of loss. In "Looking East," Spark visits with Bui as he installs a major public commission for the city of Palo Alto.

Growing up in Hanoi during the Vietnam War, Bui's childhood was marked by uncertainty and terror. In 1981, at the age of 21, Bui emigrated to the United States to study art. The transition was difficult for the artist, who has had to deal with language and cultural barriers. In addition, as a northerner, Bui often feels like an outsider within the Vietnamese community in the Bay Area, which is largely composed of southern Vietnamese.

Much of Bui's work deals with these experiences, making reference to childhood games as well as feelings of displacement. Spark visits the artist in his studio as he makes a series of shallow clay bowls. While they are still wet, Bui slams the bowls onto the floor, blowing a hole in the base of the pots and making a loud sound. The activity references a simple childhood game in which the participant that makes the loudest sound wins. Bui then gathers the remnants and incorporates them into an installation.

For more please click on the following link: Thai Bui, Spark profile

Thai Bui's work is on exhibition through February 28.