Michael Stearns Creates Contemporary Color Dazzle

Posted on by Diversions LA

Michael Stearns is a contemporary artist whose practice explores fundamental questions of existence, origin, and the forces that animate being.  His rich work operates at the intersection of metaphysical exploration and aesthetic investigation, seeking not only to articulate these universal, eternally relevant questions but also to implicate the viewer in their contemplation.

Stearns says that he employes a painterly language that consists of both organic forms and vibrant, saturated color. The artist constructs visual fields that oscillate between abstraction and figuration, amplifying the phenomenological impact of these thematic concerns.

Whether creating entirely abstract, lush and brilliantly colored canvases or more precise maps, roads, grids…or a mix of recognizable, impressionist and abstract landscape, Stearns work is a riveting fairytale, a narrative ripe for the eye to take in and the heart to feel.

In his sculptural works, he often employs the most prosaic of found materials, from cereal boxes to bits of colored cardboard and wire. What he makes from these humble textures does not just elevate the material but transforms it, making it something almost ethereal, an accordian of light and color. His natural and industrial materials are synthesized, generating a dialectic between the primal and the constructed, transforming dissonance into a harmonious duality.

Color shimmers, shape mutates, image mesmerizes. Galvanizing is one way to describe the layered luster of Michael Stearns’ art. Filled with a glowing joy, his work explores questions of profound meaning with dazzling aesthetic forces that fill the viewer with a profond sense of wonder amid its heightened chromatic intensity.

Stearns’ work is reverant in its respect for nature, form, the miracle of life, and the fecundity of nature. Moon shapes, seascapes, rose colored trees, orange mountains, purple coastlines and blue roads dissect, diverse, and blossom. His work is both intelligently precise and voluptuously open, images of land, sea, sky, and the universe itself, all fragrant with color, steeped in memory, imagination, and an inveterate belief in the miraculous.

Whether painting mystical shapes, congruent maps, highly textured landscape, or sculpting with cardboard and newspaper to bring both nature and urban society together, Stearns is a force to be reckoned with.

To view his work is to be immersed in it; the pulse of life and the power of his art run through each image like a current. Stearns’ radiance and accessible yet deeply resonant work is a slice of both California life and magical light. Of course, maybe that is one and the same.

Stearns’ work is currently on exhibit at Diversions Fine Arts Gallery in Manhattan Beach through July 26th., as well as at his own studio and gallery in the Los Angeles Harbor Arts building in San Pedro. DFA Gallery is open 12-4 Thursdays-Sundays, with special open house programming from 12-4 July 25th and an artist’s talk and closing reception on July 26th from 1-3.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis and as provided by Michael Stearns Studio.

Transformations Are Headed Your Way

Posted on by Diversions LA

Transformations features the work of three stellar artists offering abstract works as unique as each artist.  Opening this weekend at Diversions Fine Arts Gallery,  Amy Thornberry, Connie Saddlemire, and Sharon Weiner each present stunningly original visions of vibrant art that speak to the promise of change, delight, and insightful gaze.

Thornberry manipulates her mixed media and painted materials into portals that cause pause, wonder, and reflection.

Drawn to the Buddhist practice of tonglen, which means both sending and taking, through her art she moves viewers from the dark into the light with often ethereal, layered, and vividly colorful works that dance with meaning and a magical sense of motion. Working with elements of collage, acrylic paint, and layers, each piece resonates a sense of both inner peace and mysterious renewal.

To experience Saddlemire’s complex, geometrically abstract work is like entering a mesmerizing and intricate puzzle or taking a step into a brilliantly ordered wonderland.

Experimentation and innovation lead her into a world that’s filled with compelling change and woven patterns that each explore a special story. Her photography is exceptional and precise, creating a painterly sense of pattern and perfection.

Sharon Weiner’s abstracts are alive with light and color, lush and shifting, embodying both sensation and thought. As an artist, she gives form to her own lived experiences and to a profound sense of awareness itself.

Describing her work as visualizing self-revelation, viewers will find her work calls to and reveals meaningful emotions within themselves. These are astonishing works, some large in scale, some small, each unfolding like the petals of a flower or the colors of the universe as seen from space.

Both individually and combined, these artists’ works embody every transformation that April promises, unfolding a sense of awe, waiting to embrace each viewer with joy, and as T.S. Eliot wrote “…mixing/Memory and desire, stirring.”

It’s a time to celebrate new growth, and a time to remember the past. A time for Transformations. In today’s fraught environment, isn’t it time to transform? Bringing the color, light, texture, and emotion of these splendid works close is a tonic for these times.

 

The exhibition is on view starting Saturday April 11th, with a reception from 4-7 p.m.; the artist’s talk and closing will be May 3rd from 1-3 p.m., with regular gallery hours 12-4 Thursday-Sunday or by appointment.  Diversions Fine Arts is located at 1069 N. Aviation Blvd. in Manhattan Beach.

  • Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis and as provided by the artists