IN THE MAIN GALLERY:

Pictured above: "Tête-à-Tête, Balch Creek"
Forest Park 6" X 5" 

Mary Wells presents a unique collage technique: painted, printed and cut paper. Wells has adapted the Italian craft mosaic minuto that originated in Rome and which became a souvenir item popular with travelers.  In her work Wells has substituted the glass tesserae mosaics with miniscule fragments of painted or high quality printed paper.  The artist’s work is realistically coherent, based on personal experience and tied to a sense of place. Her images are derived from photos she has taken during her travels or of places she has lived.  Many of her pieces utilize a 4 x 6 inch format reminiscent of two popular souvenir items: snapshots and postcards. Each piece contains some aspect of landscape, memory and journey. By combining elements from both photos and postcards into her work Wells has created her own souvenirs that while generated through personal experience, embrace a more universal view.

Lauren Carrera’s mixed media assemblages conjure the atmosphere of theatre, the magic of scientific invention, and the poetry of photography and painting. Carrera will have a variety of styles including dioramas, painted photographs & assemblages.  In her one of kind assemblages, Carrera combines found objects and manipulated photographic images with a painter’s touch.  Other work is multi-layered, with stratified images evocative of personal and collective dream material.  In explaining her diorama series, “Early trips to the natural history museum in Boston, a fascination with all things miniature, along with my interest in the psychology of dreams, led me to create what I consider little dreamscapes. Each box consists of an original oil painting interacting with artifacts or natural objects in unexpected contexts.”  She calls this body of work, her “Phantasma” series

Pictured right:  "The Illusionist"
mixed media assemblage