Join Us Friday, June 15 from 6 - 9 PM for Gallery Stroll Art Access Gallery Presents:

June 2012 Exhibition Join Us Friday, June 15 from 6 - 9 PM for Gallery Stroll Art Access Gallery Presents Oil on Aluminum Plates by Paul Vincent Bernard Paul Vincent Bernard is a Salt Lake printmaker and painter who creates minimalist landscapes - abstract shapes, paths, and margins inspired by the spare Utah geography. Dark monoliths and deep black forms are threaded with slender fissures, edged in loose fast scrawls, and often jut into only the merest slip of pale horizon. Working in both media, Bernard’s sensibilities as a painter are informed by his printmaking training, while his prints frequently have a painterly feel. The inks are frequently painted onto enamel-coated printing plates or painted panel that are then scratched, rubbed, and scribed-upon in a way that leaves the finished piece with not just gravity, but also energy. A Utah native, Bernard is inspired by the natural landscape, but his minimalist aesthetic draws him to the more subtle landscape. "My themes revolve aound post modern notions of space, place, geography, distance, and the passage of time; and while I work towards a minimal and formal statement, quite often my romantic, expressive, and even lyrical vision insists on being present in the finished work," he says. Florentine Memoirs by E. Clark Marshall During his year-and-a-half tenure as a graduate student of Renaissance Art History with Syracuse University in Florence, Italy, Marshall was surprised to find that some of the most breathtaking works of art he studied were not the paintings and sculptures he learned about as an undergraduate. Rather, it was the beautiful manuscripts that he researched in order to learn more about the Rennaissance artists. "The stunning calligraphy on the vellum and paper pages of Florence's archives had a profound impact on my aesthetic. I found the calligraphies of the Florentine masters to be masterpieces in and of themselves," says Marshall. Using an image transfer process he developed, Marshall began using these texts as a design element in his ceramic work. He begins with old copies or facsimiles of primarily Florentine documents and makes silkscreens out of the images, and brings them to life on each piece. Marshall says that he is more interested in "emphasizing the beauty and the aesthetic of the writings, rather than their content." "My first priority has always been making beautiful works of art, while still working within the parameters of functionality," adds Marshall. He also points out that one of the most exciting parts of creating his work is the firing of the piece due to the many factors that can affect the finished work. "What results is not an original piece born solely of the artist, but a collaborative work created by the artist and the elements of nature that surround us every day."

Access II Gallery Presents Mixed Media Collages by Marina Alexandrescu A native of Bucharest, Romania, Marina Alesandrescu immigrated with her mother to Salt Lake City at the age of 16. It is at that moment that Alexandrescu first began what she refers to as her "long journey of displacement." As an immigrant, Alexandrescu says she "quickly became aware of what she had lost: the comforting sense of belonging, of community and of connection." In her years living in different cities, travelling and searching for that place where she would once again feel "whole and connected," Alenxandrescu has finally realized that what she has been looking for all along may not be an actual place at all, but a mental space where seeming opposites converge in a harmonious collage. "Perhaps I have finally found this place in my work," she adds. Alexandrescu's collages typically begin with a single image, which then develops through the layering of various elements into a narrative. "The process of combining many materials with different identities, textures and visual qualities is very exciting to me," she says. "In a way I view collage itself as a metaphor for the layered whole made up of experiences, memories, thoughts, dreams and emotions which is human life itself."