Columbia City Art Walk: May 2011

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Cat Jobes Open Studio Columbia City Artwalk

Cat Jobes
For further information, please contact the artist at:
catjobes@hotmail.com

Artist Statement:

I learned how to paint by studying the simplicity of old black and white photography. As I painted I became captivated by these finite moments of humanity. Light and composition then translate to story and life. I hope to leave my audience asking, “What was she doing?” or ”Who is that?”, wanting to know more about the characters.
I also make all kinds of mosaics. Since 2003 I’ve studied, taught and produced glass, ceramic, pebble, 2-D, 3D, traditional and not-so-traditional mosaic. Presently I am working on large, outdoor work. With mosaic I use a similar process of playing with light and composition to bring life to a hard surface, while intuitively building a story.

Molly Magai Open Studio Columbia City ArtWalk

Molly Magai

Artist Statement
My recent paintings are romantic scenes of urban highway infrastructure: roads, vehicles, overpasses, and bridges. Painterly, ambiguous, and dark, they are a very personal view of a mundane subject.

My interest in this series continues partly because of my strongly conflicting feelings about the world of driving and roads. One the one hand, it's a dark subject, with implications of menace and decay - for environmental reasons and simply because of the ugliness, danger, and noise.

On the other hand, highways are dramatic and often beautiful. I like the strong curving lines of roads and bridges, and their enormous scale, and the shininess of cars. I like skies and outdoor light, especially in the dramatic, slanting light of sunny winter days or sunset. And beyond the simply visual elements, there is a sense of speed, distance, and escape – the pleasure most of us take in being in a moving vehicle.

It is possible that the day of the automobile and the many structures that support it is coming to an end. In that light I see these paintings as an elegy for the present and the recent past, conveying my fear for the future and an ambient sense of doom.