Two artists - one working on a transparent surface with an opaque medium - oil paints on glass; the other using a transparent medium on an opaque surface - watercolors on paper. Both create work that the viewer sees as layers and planes of interrelated color and form.
Charles Katzenbach works with oil paints on glass panes in a unique manner painting layers of geometric shapes on different levels. This causes the interrelationships on the picture plane to shift as the viewer's perspective changes. He also works with mirrors and the properties of glass to form a visual experience where color floats, reflects & travels through and around the surfaces to exude a pulsing complex system.
Charles studied art at Princeton University with painter, Esteban Vincente and master potter, Toshiko Takaezu, then afterwards at the New York Studio School. He was featured in "New Art International" 2004 and has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the Northeast.
Watercolorist Gail Bracegirdle continues to explore techniques and surfaces that expand the diversity and complexity of her work. For this exhibit she has returned to the basics of painting flowers, one of her favorite subjects. Among the required courses when Gail B studied Textile Design at Moore College of Art, was learning to observe, draw and paint flowers, then incorporate them into finished artwork. It's a skill that is often taken for granted, unless one understands the infinite complexity of the subjects. Unlike the smooth refined surfaces used for traditional botanical work, these paintings are on dense, textured paper handmade in India. They are matted and framed simply with the irregular edges of the paper complimenting the representational style of the paintings.
A signature member of the Philadelphia Water Color Society, her paintings are actively exhibited in juried, group and solo shows throughout the region, have won awards, and are held in private collections in the United States, Europe and Australia.
