Enjoy art and light refreshments during the opening reception of the  art exhibition Mare Vitalis at the Manhattan Beach Art Center! 

Mare Vitalis focuses on the importance of the sea in maritime communities. This theme is evident in the work of three painters: Alex Weinstein, Wendy Stillman, and Marlene Sanaye Yamada. Their work spans from abstract to representational, and the idea of ocean is represented through specific cultural references, philosophical theories about nature and beauty, and the physicality and motion of water.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

WENDY STILLMAN's work features layers of paint inhabited by figures and symbols relevant to her life. Her reference to 80’s surf culture, ala Peter Webb aesthetics and Basquiattian methods of painting, invokes the ocean as an essential source of maritime city-life and culture.

MARLENE YAMADA's explores the physical nature of water as liquid. Working with watery paint, Yamada allows the material to flow over the canvas and guide her through this physical process of painting. Although Yamada never overtly references the ocean, her process almost symptomatically creates water-like images.

ALEX WEINSTEIN’s paintings are reductive representations of water. His nearly monochrome works limit the picture plane to just water and sky. Each of his works is self-described as being a ”slowburn,” and he invites the viewer to take time and allow the work to shift in one’s mind. Weinstein’s work pushes into the realm of the sublime, and he pays homage to artists like Mark Rothko, Casper David Friedrich and Giorgio Morandi.

EXHIBITION DATES: January 17th through March 22nd