Marti Somers

California Contemporary Art Marti Somers Figurative Abstract Surrealism Painting

Marti Somers Rice Bowl (an Asian inspired image with chopsticks and a bowl of rice) with fish. hand written poem verso. 24 X 24 inches A California artist, Somers received her BFA at the University of Hawaii. She returned to California and worked as a graphic designer at Stanford University and was a principal at Artefact Design in Palo Alto. But ultimately turned to painting. She opened Studio Believe in San Carlos and co-founded Somersault Studios, a non-profit publishing venture to benefit the arts of Northern California. Somers’ sensibility is both poetic and suggestive. Her scrapbook-like merger of natural images (both painted and collage) and writing, rendered in tactile, fragrant wax-based encaustic paint, is seductive and convincing. Rich compilations of vintage images, words, colors, and textures. Flowers, trees, and leaves share the space in each picture with animals, fragments of patterned paper, layers of thin oil paint over thick, glazes that partially obscure one layer and provide a new layer to work with. Stylized flowers, butterflies and birds appear prominently within Somers’ heavily textured, ‘antiqued’ bands of color and pattern. Robert Rauschenberg meets Odilon Redon in her assemblage juxtapositions of dreamy words and images. She has exhibited her work at Caldwell Snyder...

CLAUDE GAVEAU (1906 - 1970) A beautiful and large signed oil on canvas by the important french painter Claude Gaveau. The work is signed upper right and unlined and unrestored on its original canvas. Title: “Composition” Signature: Signed upper right Medium: Oil on original canvas Provenance: Private french collection Size: c. 24 x 29 inches unframed Claude Gaveau (1906 - 1970) is a French painter born in Neuilly-sur-Marne in 1940. The painter was born near Paris and studied there as well as in Belgium. He comes from a family of artists, his grandfather was the creator of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. He is passionate since very young about painting and entered the Ecole des Arts Appliqués in Paris in 1955 where he studied mural art for five years, stained glass, tapestry, mosaic and fresco. In 1960, he studied at the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, becoming equally accomplished in oil painting, watercolor, drawing and lithography, pastel and gouache. Influenced by great Post Impressionist painters such as Paul Cézanne, George Braque and Raoul Dufy, Gaveau gets inspired as well by music and lyricism. His talent was quickly recognized, in 1963 he won his first prize and obtained a scholarship from the Academy of Antwerp, Belgium which allowed him to study Flemish painting in Brussels. In 1965, with only 25 years, he made his first solo exhibition at the Angle Aigu Gallery in Paris. His career took a real turn in 1968 when he was nominated for the "la Critique Parrainé" Award by the Saint Placide Gallery in Paris. A recurrent traveler, the landscapes he observes all around the world allow him to broaden his artistic palette. Other exhibitions of his work followed during the 1960’s and 1970’s in France with the Galerie Vauban in Dijon in 1967, 1968 and 1970; with the Galerie Saint Placide in Paris in 1968; with the Galerie Marc Hudier in Belfort in 1970; and three one-man shows with the Galerie La Belle Gabrielle in Paris in 1972, 1975 and 1978. In 1980 Claude Gaveau had his first one-man exhibition with Wally Findlay Galleries...

CLAUDE GAVEAU (1906 - 1970) A beautiful and large signed oil on canvas by the important french painter Claude Gaveau. The work is signed upper right and unlined and unrestored on its original canvas. Title: “Still Life” Signature: Signed upper right Medium: Oil on original canvas Provenance: Private french collection Size: c. 24 x 29 inches unframed Claude Gaveau (1906 - 1970) is a French painter born in Neuilly-sur-Marne in 1940. The painter was born near Paris and studied there as well as in Belgium. He comes from a family of artists, his grandfather was the creator of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. He is passionate since very young about painting and entered the Ecole des Arts Appliqués in Paris in 1955 where he studied mural art for five years, stained glass, tapestry, mosaic and fresco. In 1960, he studied at the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, becoming equally accomplished in oil painting, watercolor, drawing and lithography, pastel and gouache. Influenced by great Post Impressionist painters such as Paul Cézanne, George Braque and Raoul Dufy, Gaveau gets inspired as well by music and lyricism. His talent was quickly recognized, in 1963 he won his first prize and obtained a scholarship from the Academy of Antwerp, Belgium which allowed him to study Flemish painting in Brussels. In 1965, with only 25 years, he made his first solo exhibition at the Angle Aigu Gallery in Paris. His career took a real turn in 1968 when he was nominated for the "la Critique Parrainé" Award by the Saint Placide Gallery in Paris. A recurrent traveler, the landscapes he observes all around the world allow him to broaden his artistic palette. Other exhibitions of his work followed during the 1960’s and 1970’s in France with the Galerie Vauban in Dijon in 1967, 1968 and 1970; with the Galerie Saint Placide in Paris in 1968; with the Galerie Marc Hudier in Belfort in 1970; and three one-man shows with the Galerie La Belle Gabrielle in Paris in 1972, 1975 and 1978. In 1980 Claude Gaveau had his first one-man exhibition with Wally Findlay Galleries...

A Pacific Northwest native, Bauer was born in Vancouver, Washington, and has maintained a studio in Portland, Oregon since 1976. She attended the Pacific Northwest College of Art and the University of Oregon where she received her M.F.A. Since that time, she has exhibited her work throughout the Northwest while teaching art as an associate professor at Marylhurst University. Bauer applies her modernist approach to her artwork, and her paintings become a sort of balancing act in reconciling her subjects and her techniques. Teetering between abstraction and representational, Bauer's houses are depicted as simplified forms, exploiting a universal iconography. The recognizable elements in her artwork – trees, buildings – are unconventionally depicted in wide patches of overlapping color, "pulling each painting away from literal interpretation." Marlene Bauer's abstractions stem from her interest in the visual dynamics of a quick impression of a landscape from a moving car or a glance out a window. The artist has exhibited her work in solo exhibitions at the Laura Russo Gallery, the Elizabeth Leach Gallery (both in Portland), and the Davidson Galleries in Seattle. Bauer's artwork is included in many of the region's public and private collections including the King County Regional Justice Center, Bank of America, the City of Portland, the City of Seattle, the Oregon State...

This one is unsigned. the second one is signed. Born in Paris in 1946 and raised in the heart of an idyllic French countryside near the Loire Valley, Jacques Lamy began painting at ...

This one is signed. the second one is unsigned. Born in Paris in 1946 and raised in the heart of an idyllic French countryside near the Loire Valley, Jacques Lamy began painting at ...

Shirley’s love of creating came at an early age. She learned many of her techniques from the time she spent with her depression-era grandmother, making artistic statements from items...

Shirley’s love of creating came at an early age. She learned many of her techniques from the time she spent with her depression-era grandmother, making artistic statements from items...

Encaustic and oil on canvas on wood

Frank Olt was a artist in residence at P.S1, the legendary Long Island City studio/gallery complex during the late 70s. Olt regards himself largely as a self taught painter, identify...

SALI SWALLA In All The World Encaustic 20 x 20 x 1.5 inches Framed: 21.5 x 21.5 x 2 inches

14 x 12, oil on canvas with wood frame. About the artist: A painter and illustrator, Peters’ work has been shown nationally for over a decade. In his most recent series, Peters has...