The subject of light has always intrigued New York artist, Laura Hohlwein, and has informed and shaped much of her work. From her early illuminated, multi-layered paintings on glass to the most recent large oils on canvas, light is an omnipresent force.

In her newer paintings, abstract objects and forms, or fields of rich color, resonate in space defined by light that is at once sharp and blurred. One responds to them as when looking at any surface where light dictates the image: a rainy street, a reflective shop window, a pool of water that bends or breaks the objects it holds. This sense of light and depth, of the spatial relationship between objects, light and color in painting, is central to the work.

Often a scrawled calligraphy or small, repeated patterns or shapes seem to rise and fall within the pictorial space adding to the mysterious quality of the paintings. Painterly, dense, luminous and rich, her paintings are both accessible and compelling.

Bay area artist, Marilyn Kuksht states: “My art is contemporary abstract metal sculpture. Most of my works are fabricated in steel or cast in bronze and range in size from small pedestal scale pieces to large outdoor garden and plaza works. Concentration of unique steel patination has become my specialty.

My focus is on form and the use of space, line, balance, tension and implied movement to create feeling and reaction in the viewer. While I sometimes incorporate industrial detritus, that I see as the footprints of technology, I do not emphasize the source of the materials but instead, the sense of energy, grace, movement and vitality rooted in their past. I do not set out to create meaning. Although titles reflect my personal response to the works I create, meaning, if it exists, is given by the viewer.”

New York artist Carol Mangan's stunning, subtly hued biomorphic abstractions remind the viewer of Asian landscape painting. Her paintings demonstrate the possibilities for an extraordinary empathy between painter and subject, on in which painting is not so much a window on the world as a world unto itself.

The subject of her paintings in this exhibition is from a series of works about a pond. After months of working in nature, altering landscape, and creating a pond, in upstate New York, Carol has used this creative process as a springboard to create these new works.

These fresh paintings are done honoring all of the five elements used to manifest her pond. The process was started by finding an aquifer (Water). This led to cutting ( Metal) down trees (Wood). These trees were piled up and burned (Fire). The ground (Earth) was dug and the aquifer (Water) filled the opening. As this creative cycle is present in nature, these paintings illustrate the abstract and organic movement of this cycle.

Artist Gordon Goodban from Sacramento paints on both paper and canvas. The images are non-objective, but many elements in the work have been inspired by nature, primarily trees, branches, and stones. The paintings contain geometric and architectural shapes creating dynamic balance, syncopated rhythms, tension and overall harmony. The pictorial space is fundamentally two-dimensional, with playful interaction between positive and negative space.