Humboldt State University First Street Gallery is pleased to present, Six Unruly Artists Paint the Town.  Featured in the exhibition are paintings by six artists from California's North Coast who work in diverse contexts and styles.

The participating artists display a colorfully rich show that runs the gamut from realist interpretations to imaginative expressions. This exhibition is divided between two rooms offering viewers polemically charged subjects in one room and poetically inspired visions in another. The exhibition’s broad spectrum of painterly expression demonstrates to the community the infinite choices of subjects and methods available to the contemporary painter.

In one room the figurative works capture thought-provoking issues of personal, political, inter-personal interactions and societal affairs. Fernando Ramirez portrays an intimate series that examines what he calls “self-love” and the importance of observing in one’s self the “difference in masculinity/ femininity, dominance/ submission and other such gender-based binary oppositions.” Rebecca Glaspy’s feminist inspired paintings address gender inequalities and culturally entrenched biases.  In portraits of powerful women, such as Hillary Clinton or Oprah Winfrey, Glaspy portrays women who have endured and thrived despite the hardships and judgments they face merely because they are born as women.

In another room the gallery visitor will find art that registers on the poetic end of the painting spectrum.  Artist Julie McNiel grasps her imaginative license and “re-creates for us to see her fanciful and powerful world of characters, stories and imaginary landscapes drawn from all the realms and influences of her life” (Artweek magazine, November 2007). Kelly Leal approaches her paintings by “just letting elements and forms come as they would,” poetically portraying her imagination without the obstruction of explanations.

Participants include:

• Rebecca Glaspy
• Alyse LaVerne
• Kelly Leal
• Julie McNiel
• Jake Mondragon
• Fernando Ramirez