Even though the beauty of summer is in the rearview mirror, there are still interesting and beautiful pieces of art to be admired at the Artists Gallery in Sunriver. Selected artists are honoring breast cancer survivors by donating ten percent of sales to local support organizations for that cause. The Second Saturday Artists Reception is October 12.
Fine art oil painter, Marietta Bajer is a new artist at the gallery. As a child, the Polish born artist spent countless hours with her art historian grandfather learning about European art. Young Marietta sketched and colored her own renditions of the classic paintings that she studied in her grandfather’s books.
Bajer brought her love of art to the United States when her father defected from Poland to accept a professorship at the University of Oregon. It is amazing that Marietta is completely self taught, and it is easy to see the “old world” European painting influence in her work. Several of her pieces are atmospheric landscapes, others are exotically colored flowers. Her images of animals are so lifelike that it is as if the viewer is drawn into the painting.
Long time gallery artist, Jeff Thompson, continues to amaze collectors with his unbelievable glass pieces. New pieces at the gallery reflect an artistic point of view inspired by biology and geology. Thompson created a series of glass panels entitled Stratascape.
The artist uses the repetition of simple shapes, which vary in a subtle and random way, to evoke patterns found in the natural world. The designs suggest layers of sedimentary earth; the smooth, rounded surface of a bed of river rocks, or the cellular structure of living organisms.
The sculptures are created with traditionally pulled murrini and cane that is then formed and squeezed in a custom hot-glass sculpting method developed by the artist. His color palette is soft but lively and the surface of the glass is sand carved to create a appealing satin-matte finish.
Fine art image creator, Vern Bartley, has been photographing presidents, judges, bugs, funerals, weddings, kids and families, rocks and weeds and everyday regular kinds of people and things for five decades. As a photojournalist, kidnapper (you know……shooting screaming kids for the old Family Record Plan), owner of a couple of portrait and commercial studios, manager of a camera store, magazine photo editor, founder of two or three camera clubs and owner of an aerial photography business, Vern has definitely earned his artistic chops, but nothing could predict the beautiful and fantastical images that the artist produces today.
About 10 years ago, VernI felt the tug to take all those experiences and apply them to image that he wanted to create, not what the customer wanted him to record. That journey led the artist to realize that more and more of his fine art images were often a compilation of multiple images or parts of multiple images that, when brought together in a creative way often ended up as stunning, desirable, collectable and sellable fine art images. And, for the first time in a long time the old “creative juices” were alive again.
Gene Thomas, stained glass artist, provides the gallery with a window full of colorful, jewel toned creations that delight gallery visitors. Some pieces are geometric with multiple textures and complementary colors. Other pieces depict scenes from nature. One such piece captures the delicacy of hummingbirds in mid flight. Thomas’ pieces are a favorite of Sunriver visitors that want to take a piece of their Sunriver experience home with them. They also make beautiful gifts for deserving friends.
541-593-2127 or 541-593-8274, www.artistsgallerysunriver.com.
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