Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Valley artists connect with their environment

Green Antelope show reveals all sides of nature


By SABINA DANA PLASSE
Express Staff Writer

Zoey Pierce and Helen Bonner enjoyed a large turnout for their opening at the Green Antelope Gallery in Bellevue on Friday, April 4. Express photo by David N. Seelig Photo by David N. Seelig

The Green Antelope Gallery celebrtes the coming of spring with a new exhibition by two valley artists--Helen Bonner and Zoey Pierce, which opened on Friday, April 4.

Bonner exhibits new drawings and paintings that celebrate her passion for nature, especially its relationship with animals, and particularly horses. Bonner tries to capture the spirit of animals and nature throughout all her work.

"The relationships of animals and plants to each other and the elements of the earth are the subjects that motivate me to create artwork," Bonner said.

Bonner moved to Bellevue in 1981 from Fresno, Calif., and taught first grade at Bellevue Elementary School. When she retired from teaching in 2006, she opened the Green Antelope Gallery with her daughter Brooke.

As the elementary school art teacher at The Community School in Sun Valley, Zoey Pierce is constantly surrounded by creativity. In addition, Pierce is an art therapist with a focus on helping children.

"It's a beautiful exchange to use art as a bridge to emotions," Pierce said. "I don't analyze their artwork."

Pierce exhibits all her encaustic paintings at the gallery, which reveal the many hundreds of hours she has spent perfecting her technique.

"One thing that keeps coming out are lines and circles," Pierce said.

"I'm in a line-and-circle stage and cannot get enough circles. I am trying to discover what is the perfect circle."

It can take Pierce anywhere from 10 to 50 hours to finish a piece. She said it all depends on her and the wax.

"I am enthralled by encaustic work," Pierce said. "I absorb myself in it. I feel I have moved into my own encaustic way of painting, learned about it and expanded it. Many encaustic artists don't work as large as I do. I have many 'secret' ways and techniques such as working with a torch and heat guns."

Pierce said she is moved by the fluidity of wax, how torches heat wax and how wax moves. At the moment she is inspired by the color green, which she finds significant because her passion for the color was inspired by a feeling.

"I am always inspired by my surroundings and what is going on around me," Pierce said. "There is a piece that was inspired from when I got married last summer and it's a mix of my experience and environment at the time."

Pierce's work is non-representational, allowing viewers to develop their own attachments to it. There are many ways to interpret her pieces, from oceans to landscapes of other worlds. All of Pierce's art is an extension of herself.

Most important to Pierce is keeping her art affordable. She said creating art is about people appreciating it.




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