Representational oil
paintings made in Brooklyn without irony
Original Fine Art: Contemporary cityscapes, landscapes, and interiors
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE St. Francis College Being There BROOKLYN, NY - St. Francis College is pleased to present Being There, an exhibition of oil paintings by Ella Yang and Mary K. Connelly that opens to the public on Thursday, June 2, on view in the Callahan Center Gallery. The gallery will be open Monday through Sunday, 9 a.m. - 9 p.m. Clarity of vision and a sense of being in the present moment is the shared perspective between painters Yang and Connelly. Being There: Recent Paintings showcases Yang's cityscapes and landscapes, done in oil on canvas, and Connelly's small-scale interiors, which are oil on panel. Yang, who primarily paints en plein air, states: "My goal is to capture the spirit of a scene at a particular instance, especially the effects of light. I am drawn to views that might not have obvious aesthetic appeal, but where the commonplace seems to have a special patina at the moment I am there." The practice of being fully aware, fully present is, according to Yang, an integral part of her Eastern heritage, which defines her art-making process. Her work is a visual homage to the beauty, richness and bounty in her life. When it's all working well, Yang says that painting is a form of meditation that pays tribute to the abundant benefits of attentiveness. In Connelly's intimate-scale paintings, Being There signifies the union of the sacred with the everyday, what Paul Tillich called The Eternal Now. The artist is concerned with our notions of space -how our perception of "home" and other spaces shape our thoughts, memories and dreams. Connelly explains: "Painting the empty interior began for me over ten years ago as a response to my parents' deaths, arising out of a longing for home. As the grief healed, my work evolved more into a poetic response to my surroundings. Also included in this show is the series Paris Studio--a body of work Connelly created as an artist-in-residence at the Cité des Arts in Paris in spring 2010. Ella Yang is based in Brooklyn, NY, and is a member of the 440 Gallery (www.440gallery.com), an artists' collective. Mostly self-taught, Yang's passion for painting was re-kindled during a 3-week intensive fine art program at The International School of Art - Umbria in 2001. She has shown her work in four solo exhibitions and over two-dozen group exhibitions in the past 7 years, including the Blue Mountain Gallery in New York City. She is included in 100 New York Painters, a survey of living New York artists written by C.M. Dantzic (Schiffer Publishing Company). Mary K. Connelly is associate professor of
painting at University of Colorado Denver. She received her MFA in painting from
Indiana University, Bloomington, and her BFA in painting from Washington
University in St. Louis. The artist has been featured in 13 one-person shows
over the past 12 years and has been in numerous selected group exhibitions
including The Salmagundi Club in New York City and the SFMOMA Artists Gallery in
San Francisco. Her work is included in the permanent collections of several
universities and published in last year's New American Paintings Anniversary
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