BAYarts' February gallery openings

"Hidden Tower" by Patty Flauto, whose work will be in the Sullivan Family Gallery at BAYarts this February, along with Tina Elkins' pieces. 

New to the BAYarts galleries this February are two exhibitions that feature five different artists. 

In the Sullivan Family Gallery is Tina Elkins and Patty Flauto with "Intuitions," a showing of abstracted, dreamy landscapes. Their description is as follows: "There is a long, close relationship between landscape and abstraction in modern painting. Landscape can be simultaneously intellectual and formal as well as intuitive and emotional."

They continue on to talk about how the elements in nature can all become interpreted and blurred away from the more traditional, realistic rendering. "Land, sky, and water all lend themselves easily to the visual language of abstraction whether through a systematic exploration of composition, or an emotional expression of color and surface. Tina Elkins and Patty Flauto use landscape as a metaphor for other ideas."

The works seem to have a dreamlike appeal to them, balancing pleasing color combinations with strong composition layout.

In the Dianne Boldman Education Gallery is an Emerging Artists exhibition (titled "Whoa") with Davon Brantley, Amirah Cunningham and Megan McNamara. They are three graduates of the Cleveland Institute of Art, showing the results of their B.F.A. thesis work.

In the description accompanying the exhibition they wrote: "These works share a theme of mediation on internal conflict due to external influences from our society. This is accomplished through a fusion of color psychology with modes of self-representation, both abstractly and illustratively."

Images that will be in the showing include vibrant colors and graphic shapes.

Both of these BAYarts exhibitions will be on view from Feb. 8 until March 1. The opening receptions are on Friday, Feb. 8, from 7-9 p.m.