Sarah Williams and Mateo Galvano

LANGUAGE
September 8th through November 18, 2006
OPENING RECEPTION:
Friday, September 8, 2006- 7-9pm
Mateo Galvano's work is inspired by his passion for language and his devotion to the personal feelings and emotions that are consistent with all humanity.
"When I work I become witness to a quiet and passionate sense of perception in which marks on the surface can travel or speak, and colors can conjure revelations. I expect to excite in the viewer a memory of soul, to tell without word or symbol an inchoate and benevolent language, a song. I paint to recall the future, to contribute to evolution by experiencing something discrete as a particle in the vast human sea."
Galvano's abstract paintings are atmospheric and bold, using colors that are both subdued and excited. Galvano works with the rich textures of oil paints and layers with delicate collaged papers and textures with drawn elements to create small, and larger, images that are detailed and masterfully produced.
"Painting is a path that is linked to devotion and to grieving. It is a way to honor all that is lost and a way to celebrate immeasurable or nearly hidden things. The current body of work is approached by looking through a veil, by observing mysterious nature to read the signs. Upon entering the seductive world of paint, canvas, paper, ink and brush and following slow paths of lines or drips, I invite storms resolved by tranquil atmospheres and the stillness of time and changing matter. "
This is Galvano's second exhibition at MAINSITE Contemporary Art. Mateo Galvano has exhibited his work in places including Santa Fe, New York City and Gordes France. Mateo Galvano lives and works in Columbus, Ohio.




TOPOLOGY COLLECTIVE
September 8th through November 18, 2006
OPENING RECEPTION:
Friday, September 8, 2006- 7-9pm


Sarah Williams work is inspired by science and her intense curiosity about the natural world.
Sarah Williams uses predictable mechanical photographic processes to print her images, but the real innovation of Williams's work comes in the creation of the negatives she uses. To make these negatives, Williams creates a detailed drawings on old cartography charts, graphing papers, and maps. Once the drawing is complete, Williams coats the paper with oil and bakes it in the oven, making it semi-transparent with an orange cast like that of a color negative. From these color paper negatives, she creates a photographic contact print and, as Williams explains, "utilizing a medium that is widely considered to represent reality, and abstracting it to communicate an outcome of mystery. Although I can control what colors will result in the final image, the variables of the drawings themselves, the paper types I use, and the length of time I bake each image creates subtle alchemical surprises in the final print. This element of controlled chaos serves as a constant reminder that science never will harness complete understanding of the natural or technological world."
In May of 2006, Sarah was selected as a recipient of a $2,000 Award of Excellence from the Oklahoma Visual Artist Coalition.
Sarah currently lives and works in Oklahoma City, OK. She received her BFA in Photography from the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico in 2001. Following her graduation from CSF, she lived in New York City for a brief period of time and returned to Oklahoma in 2002 to live and work as an artist.