Title: Family Outing Title: Animales Mixed medium- colored tissue paper and india ink on paper.

THE HUMAN FORM has it all: the challenge of Body and Spirit; to capture a MOMENT OF ITS ESSENCE renders a True Piece of Art!

I take quantitative information from the US Census and other public websites and create works of fine art. I explore pages of data that now fill the public realm relating to demographics, religion, ethnic backgrounds, hate crimes, gender issues-- topics that define our modern world-- and recompose these statistics into visual form.

I use simple materials (acrylic paint, graphite pencils, rulers and drafting film) to create complex, information-rich art. My process is labor intensive. Instead of using a computer to generate layouts and designs, I sort through the numbers and graphs, collate information, sketch out designs, and then draft and paint. This allows me to digest the information; the final product not only accurately describes the quantities, but the qualities of the new ‘map’ I have created.

My background as an architect has greatly influenced how I approach art. An architect takes information and translates it into built form. The intent is to make a functional, beautiful object. My art uses this same process, creating images that evoke discourse and insight into the world around us.

Contemporary culture, human folly and an obsessive curiosity for the macabre provide the fuel for my subject matter. My work is inspired by the natural sciences as well as by the classical drawing techniques of the old masters, including anatomical studies by artists such as Andreas Vesalius and Bernhard Siegfried Albinus. My recent paintings incorporate anatomical imagery to explore the human psychological condition, such as cutaway skulls portraying our basic human drives and the thin veneer of humanity overlaying our animal nature.

Art is always a process of discovery for me. One of my goals as an artist is to coax viewers into noticing more details about their environment through the experience of looking at or remembering my paintings -- perhaps, if I'm successful, sharing or extending my own process of discovery. I have both figurative and abstract bodies of work. When I begin a new body of work, I feel like I am learning a new language.

Aristotle said,

I work to sustain that first glimpse of an image through the process of producing a painting.  The many layers of paint are used to first break down an image, then to rebuild it.  The result is somewhere between representation and abstraction: when a painting expresses what I cannot with words.  I can communicate in a language of my own making.

I started painting as a way to record and study places.  This evolved naturally from my work as an architect.  I attended the University of Michigan where I received degrees in Architecture and first started painting.  I currently live and work in San Francisco.

With a background in scientific illustration, Melissa Wagner's work uses a variety of methods and media to engage the natural world and illuminate its earthly remnants. A disparate falling of leaves, scattered branches, crushed shells, and dried ferns, emerge from a paintings surface to create organic three-dimensional works that incorporate intense color, texture, and a perpetually changing surface. Through her work, Melissa strives to examine and magnify the disguised processes that envelope the living world while addressing issues concerning reproduction and the environment. Mixing the products of nature themselves with glossy synthetic resin coats, Melissa playfully composes her vision of a world that harnesses natural subjects to construct new models where art, earth, science, and wonder intersect. Melissa draws he inspiration from her love of nature and extensive local and global travels. Originally from Detroit, Melissa has spent the past 10 years in San Francisco and now calls the West Coast her home. Her work has been shown in galleries, restaurants, corporate offices, clubs, and retail stores which include Mandalay Bay, SomArts, The Canvas and Wells Fargo, and is part of collections in Germany, New Zealand, Ireland, and extensively through out the United States. She has participated in San Francisco Open Studios for the past six years, completed a residency at the San Francisco Legion of Honor and De Young Art Center, and recently organized and opened Clara Street Studios in SOMA. She is involved with many projects including the Maitri AIDS Hospice, several mural projects within the Bay Area, and ArtSpan, where she has been an active volunteer with the non-profit organization for over 8 years working on graphic design, signage, marketing and event planning.

My favorite criteria for a good painting or drawing: It should be A WINDOW, A MIRROR and A PAINTED SURFACE. The first relates to the offering to the viewer, or the story behind the work. The second is an imperative that the work should offer the opportunity for the viewers to find their own stories within it. And the third tells us that what appears on the surface of the piece is not something "real", it is after all only a story told with paint or pencil. My works are representational in that they look like something, but what? Within each piece are multiple aspects of the story, often at different scales and within different time frames. Ideally they allow various stories and interpretations. Jerry Veverka is a practicing architect in San Francisco, residing in the Bernal Heights district since 1988. He studied art in both his undergraduate and graduate studies but is largely self-taught as a painter. He has been painting and drawing for most of his adult life, always for pure enjoyment. In 1999, after many years of active advocacy for disadvantaged persons, he committed himself to serious painting.