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Persona
Opening Reception:
Friday, February 22, 6 – 8 pm
February 22 – March 22, 2013
The Maude Kerns Kerns Art Center presents “Persona: Works by Lillian Almeida, Judith M. Sander, and Kathy Tiger,” opening on Friday, February 22, and on display through Friday, March 22. All three artists explore character, presenting distinctly different views of the human subject.
Eugene artist Lillian Almeida focuses on heads and faces in her large acrylic and latex paintings and smaller ink and gouache works. Almeida is interested in the “phenomenon wherein our brains recognize and decode faces, and the reactions we experience.” Her gestural, painterly style makes use of accidental splatters and marks. Through the process of painting, she often discovers surprising aspects of the model’s persona.
A graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute, Almeida also completed independent studies in ceramics and printmaking at the Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy. She has worked in the visual arts for over 30 years. Her paintings, which are represented in many private collections, were exhibited at the former Opus6ix Gallery (2007-2009) and at the Blue River Medical Center (2008). She received the “Best of Show” award at the 2012 Mayor’s Art Show.
Philomath artist Judith M. Sander displays mixed media collages of female figures set within fanciful environments and sometimes accompanied by fantastic animals. Her colorful pieces have a narrative element and often contain remnants of a text handwritten in pen and pencil. She “enjoys bringing together different mediums into a dramatic interplay between object and figure.”
Sander has had numerous group and invitational exhibitions in venues throughout Oregon, as well as in Washington, Illinois, Iowa, and Florida. She has also had one-person exhibitions at The Arts Center, Corvallis, the Women’s Center and Giustina Gallery at Oregon State University, DIVA, the Pegasus Gallery and Illustrated Garden Gallery in Corvallis, and the Del Mano Gallery in Los Angeles.
Kathy Tiger, of Eugene, exhibits a series of artworks in watercolor and graphitint pencils about people and their tattoos. While recognizing our shared humanity, Kathy is most interested in the individual’s uniqueness and life story. She says: “I use the tattoo work to inform and reveal the deeper aspects of the person – the imagery chosen, how it may represent that person, what it means to the wearer, to the viewer – what is under the skin.”
Tiger studied art at Lane Community College and participated in an Intensive Studies Seminar sponsored by Taos Art Association. She is a juried signature member of the National Watercolor Society and has received numerous awards from the Watercolor Society of Oregon. She has had solo exhibitions at Shelton-McMurphey-Johnson Historical Museum, DIVA, and most recently in 2009 at the Coos Art Museum in Coos Bay.