Our Life, Our Art

Here are some photos from our opening reception for "Our Life, Our Art" exhibit at the Back to the Picture Gallery in San Francisco back in October.

Art Exhibit

Group show at a South of Market Gallery

copyright ©Anahid Aslanyan - 

Hands/Leaves - acrylics on canvas board, 16"X20"

Inviting everyone to see a group show at the Back to the Picture Gallery, 
83- Tenth Street (nr. Mission) in San Francisco.

October 1 - Nov. 3, 2012. 
Opening is on Friday October 5, 2012. (Please RSVP for opening night, as space is limited and I will reserve a ticket for you).

Back to the Picture Gallery
83 -Tenth St., (near Mission)
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415)558-9901

Gallery Hours: Mon - Fri., 10 am - 5 pm
                       Saturday, 11 am - 3 pm

Exhibit continues: Oct. 1 -Nov. 3, 2012

This is one of the pieces I have in the show. I have a total of five pieces in the show.
Hope to see you there!

The Root of Being

©Anahid 2012 - acrylics, oils and sand on canvas, 36"x24"

The heart is the root of being. It is the first organ that develops in the fetus. The roots of a tree, a human heart.... I like making connections between nature and our lives as humans. I like to make connections because I see these patterns in nature that repeat themselves everywhere, in leaves and roots as well as in our brains and our circulatory systems. We seem to be all part of a mysterious pattern of growth. 

This painting came out of a drawing I did last spring after my husband had an open heart surgery.

I was doodling in my little sketch book with my favorite 4B pencil, trying to deal with what was going on without going bonkers. Although I liked the drawing a lot, I didn't come to paint it months later. I often go through and look at my various sketchbooks, new and old, to see which idea I want to develop or to make into a painting, which isn't always the case.

©Anahid 2011 - the root of being

graphite on paper - 4"6"

Contemplation-2

©Anahid 2012 - Acrylics, graphite and inks on wood panel with wooden frame.

This piece is a variation on the first Contemplation collage I posted in November 2011.  This is how this image of feminine contemplation/meditation evolved first from a sketch inspired by a sculpture, to a mixed-media collage and now a simple and understated drawing/painting on wood. This is not a painting though in the usual sense, the acrylics are used like watercolors, very thin and watery so as not to overwhelm the drawing element. I am usually very fond of intense and saturated colors layered on top of each other, but here I enjoy the simple line drawing as an expression of her serenity. We all need some serenity in this crazy world.

I don't know yet if I'll continue this particular series or not, we'll see what the muses bring....

Contemplation

©Anahid  2011- 'Contemplation' 

mixed-media with collage and drawing on textured paper, 
mounted and framed, 30"X16

This piece evolved from a drawing I made in my sketchbook based on a statue of a woman Buddha or (Buddhita as I call them) in the Asian Art Museum. This drawing changed quite a bit when I drew it again on a larger scale as you can see. The process of artmaking is fascinating to me, how images evolve, how they appear in the first place, sometimes as a faint vision which won't quit until you make it visible. It's almost like they have a life of their own, they do.
 

@Anahid 2011

Here's the first drawing I did inspired by the statue, which by the way looked very different from this sketch.

I am now doing another version of this image on a wooden surface with a great wooden frame. I will post it soon, it's a work in progress.

Wood and Water...

©Anahid -2010  'Waves and Patterns' 

acrylics and prismacolor pencils on wood panel, 12"X18"

 

©Anahid 2010 - Wood and Waves'

acrylics and mixed media on wood panel, 11"x16"

You might wonder where the wood comes in...it's interesting to note that the patterns in wood are the same as patterns in water. I discovered this when I followed the patterns of the wood pretty faithfully and it turned into waves. So many of the patterns in nature are similar this way....

She Who Watches - the evolution of a painting

©Anahid-2011 - 'She Who Watches' -mixed media on wood with shells 28"X24"

(click on image for a larger view)

This piece started with a pencil drawing I had done a few years back of a woman pushing back her covers like she was getting out of bed. One day I was looking through my sketchbook and thought it would be nice to use that drawing in a painting. I had a large piece of found plywood that lends itself to collage and assemblage of all kinds. 

So I traced the drawing onto the wood that had been gessoed white on the top right hand corner; the rest was gessoed with clear gesso so as as to retain the natural wood grain which inspired some of the painting, and the rest of the elements just kind of fell into place one by one.

Two Summer Landscapes

 ©Anahid 2010- A Day at the Beach, acrylics and sand on canvas, 16"x20"

©Anahid -2011- Water Circles - acrylics on canvas, 16"x20"

Another water scene from our many hikes........

this was a process shot of the earliest phase of the this painting so you can see the development of the painting.

Quan Yin with flowers from the garden

We have a tiny statue of Quan Yin on our kitchen table and it seems to want some flowers around it. There are plenty of flowers blooming this summer. Altars are amazing, they just fall together, they seem to want to form around a centerpiece. I usually prefer the tranquil image of a Goddess as a centerpiece for reverent contemplation.

Altar/Installation

This is a close-up view of an altar/installation I am exhibiting at Goodman2 Galleries as part of a show running from July 23 through September 25, 2011, entitled "Compost Cemetery Concept"

 Two more views of the same installation with mask, branches, bones, Goddess images, flowers etc.
Altars have a way of falling together out of natural found objects like twigs, bones and images or statues.
I've also used live plants and two of my garden mosaic stepping stones.