Anna Silver and Christopher Finch

“Anna Silver makes sensuous objects that push the sculptural form and the surface painting as far to the edge as possible. Her works occupy a unique niche as no other artist working with these materials has so successfully manipulated bold color combinations, abstract motifs, gestural calligraphy, and scale relationships to achieve such emotional effect.”   …Jo Lauria, Curator 

Chuck Close... “I am an enthusiastic admirer of Chris Finch’s extraordinary archival digital prints.  He has a distinct personal vision and an uncanny ability to be at the right place at the right time to photograph massive billboards, signage, etc., resulting in pictures populated with interesting clusters of pedestrians who seem unaware that they are performers in front of these massive images.  Chris’s work has a truly painterly touch...  I am a big fan.” 

Anna Silve

"Anna Silver's work is formed at the intersection of two worlds--painting and ceramics--and blends those rich traditions with a marvelous feeling for abstract gesture as well as brilliant color."…Frank Lloyd, Frank Lloyd Gallery

 “Anna Silver makes sensuous objects that push the sculptural form and the surface painting as far to the edge as possible. Her works occupy a unique niche as no other artist working with these materials has so successfully manipulated bold color combinations, abstract motifs, gestural calligraphy, and scale relationships to achieve such emotional effect.”   …Jo Lauria, Curator 

Anna Silver is a highly admired and much collected ceramic sculptor. Her ceramics reflect many diverse influences, including those of classical Greek pottery forms, the colors of Matisse and Bonnard, and the influence of abstract expressionist painting. Trained as a painter, printmaker, and sculptor Anna Silver’s work is included in the permanent collections of numerous museums such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Victoria and Alpert Museum in London. Her work is a testament to an extraordinary combination of experience, research, technique, and materials mixing skill with surprise.  Anna Silver’s art is perfect alchemy. Visit her website for a list of her many exhibitions and museums which have collected her work as well as images of some of her work: http://www.annasilver.com/artistProfile.htm. Her current work in the exhibit displays her incredible artistic talents.

Christopher Finch

“I am an enthusiastic admirer of Chris Finch’s extraordinary archival digital prints.  He has a distinct personal vision and an uncanny ability to be at the right place at the right time to photograph massive billboards, signage, etc., resulting in pictures populated with interesting clusters of pedestrians who seem unaware that they are performers in front of these massive images.  Chris’s work has a truly painterly touch...  I am a big fan.”   …Chuck Close

Christopher Finch was born on the island of Guernsey, in the English Channel.  After studying painting at Chelsea Art School in London, he began to write about the contemporary art scene for magazines ranging from Art & Artists and Art International to the London edition of Vogue.  Recognized for his writings about British Pop artists such as David Hockney and Richard Hamilton, he also wrote about American artists including Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and Ed Ruscha.  His publications during this period, included Pop Art: Object & Image, and Image as Language: Aspects of British Art 1950-1968, as well as a monograph devoted to the paintings of Patrick Caulfield.
            In 1968 Finch became an associate curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.  From there he moved to New York, and returned to freelancing, contributing articles to many periodicals, including Arts, Art in America, Art News, and Architectural Digest.  Starting in the mid-seventies, he began a series of books on popular culture that included the best-sellers The Art of Walt Disney, Rainbow: the Stormy Life of Judy Garland,Norman Rockwell's America, and Of Muppets and Men.  Books on fine art published in the 1980s and 90s included a series of three volumes on the history of watercolor. A recent publication is Chuck Close: Work, a monograph devoted to the career of the celebrated painter and printmaker.  Finch’s first mystery novel, Good Girl, Bad Girl, will be published later this year.

In 1984, Finch returned to making art and has since had exhibitions at the Anita Friedman Gallery in New York, and the Louis Stern Gallery in Los Angeles.  His work has been included in a number of museum shows.  Since 2005, he has employed digital photography as a medium that parallels his handmade work.  In the photographs in this exhibition, he juxtaposes the gigantism of street advertising with the busy life of the city sidewalk, discovering “chance urban collages” that evoke a surreal world in which the pampered gods and goddesses of the billboard Olympus dwarf the consumers who are the intended targets of the deities’ enticements.