Fascination

FASCINATION

JULY 16 — AUGUST 19

Tamera Avery, Lynette Cook, Jylian Gustlin & Stephanie Peek 

Andra Norris Gallery is proud to present ‘Fascination’, a summer exhibition featuring new paintings from four established Bay Area artists from our roster whose fascinating work intrigues and enlightens. 

TAMERA AVERY

Tamera Avery considers our contemporary social, political and environmental landscape, while celebrating champions of change - who are often young - with their increasingly powerful voices and determination to rearrange the balance of power. To visually shift this balance, Avery’s subjects wear masks and costumes that augment their agency. Inspired by the dramatically and often absurdly adorned characters from folk carnivals celebrating the arrival of spring, the artist employs handmade costumes for her models, to portray figures that are both modest in composition yet “heroic” in execution.

Her process starts with freehand drawing and collage from mass produced media, isolating the visuals to function as a vocabulary to deconstruct truths and then to reconstruct stories calling for action. Using imagery from the White House to Chernobyl, and icebergs to abandoned ships, Avery’s work tells stories of hope within a framework of despair, where “armor-clad” youth stand in the path of destruction and are depicted at the intersection of what is real and what is possible. 

LYNETTE COOK

In Lynette Cook’s newest collection of paintings that she calls ‘To Be’, the artist considers the indigenous people who once lived in the heart of the Bay Area, the urban spaces as they coexist today with nature, and the heartbreaking reality of habitat loss. Always Impeccably painted, Lynette Cook’s still life acrylic paintings featuring the buildings of San Francisco and its neighboring communities, are painted with harmony, sensitivity, and beauty, and tell the stories of contemporary people. In Cook’s new “To Be” paintings, she also references voices from the past, in the form of native flora and fauna reflected in urban windows, while encouraging us – the viewers – to do the same. 

JYLIAN GUSTIN

In Jylian Gustlin’s process driven paintings there is a sense that they were “made” with effort and intention over time. Richly layered with complex symbolism, a brilliant palette, and iconic patterns, her large-scale abstract Fibonacci’ and ‘Entropy’ themed works explore the intersection of science and mathematics. We are equally delighted present for the first time, a new suite of 5 intimate representational paintings that feature female figures, sensitively created with acrylic, ink, gouache, collage and pencils. Gustlin’s mixed media contemporary works of art are a celebration of creativity, bridging the mind with the heart.

STEPHANIE PEEK

Stephanie Peek's "Uniform Language" is a constellation of small painting on alabaster-coated wood panels featuring camouflage patterns of nations worldwide. Peek’s fascination with these patterns stems from her observation of nature (including her studies of flowers, for which the artist is well known), and compositions of shapes and color relationships.

Fascinated by how various countries use camouflage patterns to represent and to disguise themselves and their military equipment, the artist explores how countries see themselves in this pattern language that speaks of power and fear, while also considering each painting a prayer for peace. We will have more than 50 of these small works (10 x 10 inches) on view in the exhibition. 

We are also delighted to be presenting a selection of Stephanie Peek's "Floating Flowers" paintings in the exhibition. 

Please join us and the artists on Saturday, July 16, from 5-7 pm, and help us celebrate the launch of this very special, fascinating exhibition.