February 26, 2013 – April 20, 2013

Artists:

Tamara Stephas, Stacey Neumiller, and Patty Haller.

In the ArtsWest gallery from February 26th – April 20th, ArtsWest presents Supplemental Geology, which features artists Tamara Stephas, Stacey Neumiller, and Patty Haller. The reception is in conjunction with the West Seattle ArtWalk on Thursday March 14th from 6:00 – 7:30 pm. The reception will include an artist talk, where each artist in the show will speak briefly about their work and visitors will have the opportunity to ask questions and engage in conversation.

Patty Haller carefully analyzes and renders paint scenes of nature in order to offer them to the viewer as visual experiences full of meaning. Haller writes: “Nature to me is a rich perceptual experience, where the whole seems ordered but the details are wild.  I want both in my art, and so I create visual structures to hold the intimate natural phenomena I find so powerful – cloud reflections, ice in the ground, or a sky seen through interwoven plant forms.”

Tamara Stephas uses iconic text, architectural elements and landscape imagery in her paintings to investigate how we relate to our environment. Stephas writes: “In these works, spatial ambiguity and disruption refer to the intersection of disparate environmental spaces.”

Inspired by her love of rural farm life, Stacey Neumiller paints the subjects that occupy it: animals, plants and barns, larger than life, in bright, celebratory colors. With her background in art, graphic design and illustration, Neumiller chooses bold compositions that highlight her subject and lift them up visually as though in homage to them and the place they represent.

What these three artists have in common—and where the exhibition title gets its name—is their meaningful exploration of place. Work in Supplemental Geology proposes nostalgia, loss, and utopia in the places it investigates. Experiences of place are offered to the viewer, and all three artists do so in a way that includes not only the places they portray, but the place one currently occupies, either in body or in mind.