Art Guild of Pacifica’s “64th Annual Members Show”

Sanchez Art Center hosts the Art Guild of Pacifica’s “64th Annual Members Show,” opening Friday, Oct 21, with a reception from 7 to 9 pm. The long-running annual exhibition brings together the best works of the Guild’s nearly 150 artists who create in wide variety of mediums.  Live music will be provided at the reception by local musicians the Don Rowell Duo. Paul Bridenbaugh, Skyline College art professor, will be selecting this year’s merit and exhibition award winners.

Concurrently, the “63^rd Annual Awards Exhibition” will be on view in the Main Gallery.  The four awards artists, Sharon Collins, Sheila Gamble, Denny Holland, and Marius Starkey, were selected in 2021 by Jamey Brezezinski, an Emeritus Professor at Merced College.  Mr. Brezezinski is also curating the Awards Exhibition.

Both the 64^th Annual Members Show and the 63^rd Annual Awards Exhibition will be on view through Sunday, Nov 20.  The Exhibition Award artists along with the curator will take part in a talk on the last day of the show, at 3:30 pm, in the Main Gallery.  Acknowledgement of the awardees for this year’s exhibition will also be presented.

Sharon Collins shares that she sometimes feels more like a scientist than an artist, enjoying research through drawing in great detail. Sharon finds inspiration by nature’s wealth of patterns. She combines this with testing and discovering what a unique medium can create even with the same subject. Collins notes: “I am motivated by the joy of process and variation rather than a particular concept. I like to take a small part of a natural object and magnify it until it becomes abstract to surprise the viewer.”  Her current work focuses on several printmaking techniques, and will be showing intaglio dry point, aquatint and zinc works in the exhibition.

Sheila Gamble, a founding studio artist at Sanchez Art Center, is a visual artist working in fiber, paint, kelp and mixed media.  She draws her inspiration from the natural environment, often with a focus on the ocean.  Gamble’s works in the exhibition span her art career working in fiber.  Several pieces were created while living on the island of Kauai, in Hawaii.  The giant leaves that grow everywhere on the island were woven into the pieces created there.  Having recently retired from teaching in the Pacifica School District, Ms. Gamble continued her passion for protecting the ocean and environment by working with over 100 students to create educational art for three “totem poles” installed at Pacifica State Beach, Linda Mar.

Denny Holland will be showing representational paintings, blended with conceptual ideas and personal narratives.  Well grounded in both design and fine art, Holland’s work regularly takes gallery viewers to a place that seems both familiar and a surprise.  The multi-talented artist, who also sculpts and is a musician, has lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area for over thirty years.

Marius Starkey’s current art practice focuses us on social and environmental concerns with a series of oil paintings that are part of a continuing project.  Each work serves as a reminder, evoking meaning and emotion of the existential loss due to our current global climate crisis.  They also explore the infiltration of plastic into our oceans and food chain.  Collecting discarded plastic found on coastal beaches, the artist grinds the plastic and mixes it into his color paints.  Starkey notes, “With each brush stroke action, I explore and expand spaces, while articulating the relationship between multi-layers of shadow and light and the interplay from textures and movement.”

Sanchez Art Center is located at 1220 Linda Mar Blvd, Pacifica, about a mile east of Highway 1. Following opening night, galleries are open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 1–5 pm, and by appointment, through Nov 12. For more information:  www.SanchezArtCenter.org, or info@SanchezArtCenter.org. Visit the Art Guild of Pacifica website (www.ArtGuildofPacifica.org) to learn more about AGP including how to become a member and the benefits.