The Big Brush Off

Falkirk Cultural Center, 1408 Mission (at E Street), San Rafael, CA 94915, 415-485-3328
Opening Reception Friday, Sept. 9, 2005, 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Open Monday through Friday, 1Pm to 5 PM, Saturday 10AM to 1 PM
Show runs Sept. 9 until Oct. 15.

The Big Brush Off, a show of paintings, is coming to the Falkirk Cultural Center. Artists in the show include Robert Brokl, Jeff Carr, Gael Fitzmaurice, John King, M. Louise Stanley and Jesse Wiedel.
The six painters in this show share a belief in the continuing possibilities of representational art. United by a common use of humor, they nonetheless acknowledge the darkness at the edges of our culture.
Robert Brokl’s delight in the themes and images of art and myth has enabled him to devise a painted world of sly humor and mystery. Jeff Carr’s wrestling clowns, dressed-up monkeys and disguised self-portraits set against gaudy, patterned surface, suggest the edge of violence that surrounds us amidst a deluge of media tinsel. Issues of cultural and psychological interaction and insight underlie the hot paint Gael Fitzmaurice uses to construct her comically grotesque narratives. John King paints a world where cartoonish characters have invaded the forum of solemn history and religious devotion, luring in his viewers only to smack them with serious and discomfiting messages. In M. Louise Stanley’s paintings the conflict between humor and tragedy underlies her long-standing insistence on monumentalizing the trivial, as she inserts her artist/beatnik persona into a world of Old Master technique. Jesse Wiedel’s painted moral tableaus portray moments and people from society’s fringe that come together to create his noir atmosphere of spiritual nightmare and terrifying truth.
Confronting issues of mortality and morality with darkly humorous, often raw imagery, these six artists, laughing as they fling paint into the void, provide diversion, illumination and solace in the shadow of the Big Brush Off that faces us all.

For further information contact Beth Goldberg, 415-485-3438
Photographs on request
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Samples of the artists work from "The Big Brush Off":

Bob Brokl

Jeff Carr

Gael Fitzmaurice

John King

M. Louise Stanley

Jesse Wiedel