A Walk Through the Cypress
By Elizabeth Monks Hack, Cypress Gallery Reporter, August 2019
Gallery goers, you are in for a treat this month. Actually, you’re in for a rare, sensory experience. Featured artist Chris Jeszeck has installed “To Fluidity and Beyond!” in which we first peer into a precious world of intimate realism, and are then swept away into an abstract world of microscopic realities and vistas of the great beyond. She does this through a multitude of media and approaches, but predominantly through the technique of acrylic pouring, or “fluid art,” which she often ingeniously and playfully combines with her considerable mimetic skills. Ms. Jeszeck’s artful hand, her humor, joy and delight in the world is evident in every work on display.
Fluid Art is a popular method of creating abstract art by combining paint with additives that do not dissolve into the pigment, so that when poured the paint separates into a variety of intriguing shapes and patterns, called “cells.” Pour artists experiment with a wide variety of chemical additives, as common as household glue, and as unusual as brake fluid. Artists enjoy the spontaneous effects and “happy accidents”created through each pour, but Jeszeck, who loves learning and is fearless in experimentation with every type of art, has taken this art form to new heights.
The idea to embellish pours with realism resulted after she had created works that were pretty, but for her not interesting enough to stand alone. By adding a subject, she found she had an engaging, ready-made background. Since then, “controlled pours” and pre-planning have produced artworks such as “Splash,” in which a swimmer’s arms and legs emerge from a frothy wave. In “Abracadabra” a magician’s hands produce a playing card. Viewers of all ages and tastes will delight in the myriad of shapes – honeycomb, amoeba, floral – and the powerful, surprising linear action that the works produce. Ms. Jeszeck is on a mission to bring joy and a smile to every viewer. Each one is an imaginative, sensory, vivid experience. Bring children of all ages to see this!
In color, concept and imagination, Cypress Gallery artists produce works of great variety and excellence. Turn the corner into the main gallery and you are further immersed in an astonishing wall of color by Vicki Andersen. Several of her intense works are on on display, of which “Jalama Beach Headquarters” is compositionally exceptional. Kathy Badrak’s “Storytellers” is a surprising mixed media work. Two exquisitely painted and etched gourds, fashioned into Native American figures are mounted on a canvas, upon which dreamlike images of tribal symbols emerge. Sylvia Kokatnur’s gouache “View of Kinsdale Harbor, Ireland,” with its precise rooftops and subtle paint color and application, recalls a village and lifestyle of long ago. Gift items, equally wonderful, are available in abundance. Visit us to enhance your home, your relationships, as well as your own experience of the world.
The Cypress Gallery is located at 119 East Cypress Avenue, Lompoc. We are operated by the members of the Lompoc Valley Art Association, a 501c(3) non-profit organization, committed to expanding and supporting access and exposure to the arts in the Lompoc and Santa Ynez Valley. Contact us: www.lompocart.org., Facebook/Cypress Gallery, (805) 737-1129.
Image Captions
“Abracadabra” An acrylic pour by Chris Jeszeck Photo: Bill Morson
“Buddy” Colored pencil by Chris Jeszeck Photo: Bill Morson
“Storytellers” by Kathy Badrak Photo: Kathy Badrak
“View of Kindsdale Harbor, Ireland” by Sylivia Kokatnur Photo: Bill Morson
Gift Vignettes 1, 2, 3 Photos: Bill Morson