Vanessa Stafford

'After the Bacchanal', Contemporary Bay Area figural

1982

Signed lower right, 'Vanessa Stafford' (American, born 1954) and dated 1991. A dramatic, dreamlike townscape showing a minotaur standing at the head of a flight of stone stairs and silhouetted against a cobalt-blue night sky lit by a crescent moon. In the foreground, a figure flees while a beneficent stone statue overlooks the scene. Using soft washes of color over elegant and precise linear outlines, the artist has created an enigmatic and compelling work This California painter and muralist received an Associate Degree in Studio Art from Cabrillo College in 1985 and subsequently studied graphic design and illustration at San Jose State University. She later continued her studies under Dave McGuire and Alice Carter. Vanessa Stafford has exhibited with success nationwide and is the recipient of numerous prizes, medals and juried awards including 1st places at the Santa Cruz County Fair (1994,1998), 1st place in the Art Ability Exhibition, Maoli, PA (2012) and first place for the United Nations Linus Pauling...

Signed lower right, 'Z. Kavin' for Zena Kavin (American, 1912-2003) and dated 1966. Born in Berkeley, California, Zena Kavin studied at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco and, privately, with Kravchenko in Moscow. She lived in Berkeley and in Oakland her entire life, except for four years spent in New Mexico in the late 1930s. In 1949, she married artist Jon Cornin and settled with him in Oakland. Under the peudonym Corka, the Cornins produced cartoons for the Saturday Evening Post and the New Yorker. Kavin worked in various media, including wood engraving, lithography and sculpture. She was a member of the San Francisco Artists Association and exhibited with them as well as at the San Francisco Museum of Art Inaugural (1935), the California–Pacific International Exposition, San Diego (1935), the Golden Gate International Exposition (1939). Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Davis Art Center, the New Mexico Museum of Art and the Oakland Museum of California. Reference: Artists in California 1786-1940, Third Edition, Edan Milton Hughes: Crocker Art Museum, Sheridan Books 2002, Vol. 1, page 610; Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, Peter Hastings Falk, Sound View Press 1999, Vol. 2, page 1801; Mallett’s Index of Artists, Supplement, Daniel Trowbridge Mallett, Peter Smith...

This painting is part of the current exhibition entitled "The fantastic story of the liquid mountain" at Claire Corcia Gallery in Paris. The liquid mountain is populated by living beings with a vegetable heart. They roam freely (it seems to us *) between the earth and the air in search of their roots. They bathe and transform in liquid crystal...

In highly developed nations today there is a widespread alienation and loneliness that engenders fear and distrust, a restrictive self-righteousness of thought, and a dread of what-c...