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ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
SHAGHAYEGH CYROUS

"I have to go back to my childhood and later high school where I studied science and revolted against  my family when I changed my field of study to art one summer. Back then in Iran, art was not a common career choice, especially for women; my parents wanted me to be a doctor!

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Science, literature, traveling, and learning about the history of Iran through architecture, the diverse culture, the Green Movement and then becoming a refugee were early influences in my life and helped shape my character and outlook and the way I approach art."

 

Artist Shaghayegh Cyrous, speaks to us about her art journey and practice. Read our full interview here.

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Artwork: Reenacting the Future. Courtesy of the Artist.

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

BEATA WEHR

"I found artists’ books to be especially useful in talking about

the issues of identity, immigration, and dislocation.  I like their intimate format, and the fact that many media could be combined on the pages, creating layers of images." Her books are usually bilingual, or semi-bilingual and often mix images with writing, pieces of newspapers, found objects and other elements reflecting the everyday life in Tucson as well as her links to Poland. 

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"Some of the materials I am working with are found, so their history is unknown to me, and this mystery creates yet another layer of thinking about the time with all what is unknown and can only be guessed." Curious how the past determines the present and how what is happening now influences our thinking about the past.  "The rhythm of life is different depending on the place we live, our age, occupation, gender, and role in a family and in a society."

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

GABRIELA GONZALEZ LEAL

The materiality experienced through Gabriela Gonzalez Leal's work encompasses the general, and personal, or rather, intimate place materials and objects can hold in our day to day. To understand fully, look closely into her body of work and the strings and knots she stitches. Both literally, when making clothing pieces from paper cuttings she designs and develops, then sews together.  And symbolically, on intricate levels the artist transforms objects and puts them into play through her interactions with people. 

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Of her process, Gabriela says, "I start mainly from the metaphor but also from the concept of PLAY as a process of symbolic creation and representation of reality; then, as a constructive field of identity, through traditional toys that are an important part of popular culture." 

TUNING IN WITH MASTER

KERRY JAMES MARSHALL

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"WHY THIS IDEA OF MASTERY IS IMPORTANT,

it’s precisely because if you wanna get-in-the-game,

you gotta play it at the level of that of the people who are playing it at the highest level, are playing it at;

and the only way you can do that, really,

is to know what they know,

be able to do what they do,

and then figure out how to put all of those things

together and synthesize them in such a way that you can project your ideal into the world, so that it has an equal chance of assuming the preferred position

as any of the other things that were already out there."

ART
PRACTICE
OPPORTUNITY

      Contact Us:      OaklandArtistsGallery@Gmail.com

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