The opening for the next art exhibit at the Deines Cultural Center will be a members-only event this Sunday, January 11th. Last year's members and new members for this year have been invited and anyone who would like to join the Friends of the Deines Cultural Center may do so on Sunday and attend the reception and receive a membership gift.
The show, Color Duet will include the watercolors of Wanda Stallings along with the oil pastel and acrylic paintings of Robin Valenzuela. Both women are from Garden City.
Wanda Stallings began her watercolor journey in 1997 after early retirement from a twenty-nine year teaching career. She earned a BS degree with an emphasis in Art and an MS degree and is now a Signature Member of the Kansas Watercolor Society and a juried member of Watercolor West. She has been accepted in major watercolor exhibitions and has won numerous awards in various exhibitions and her work is included in private and corporate collections throughout the United States and Mexico.
The spontaneity, transparency, and liquidity of watercolor provide Stallings with the medium she finds appealing to paint her varied subject matter which reflects the people, animals, landscape, and flowers of the Plains. Her painting style is best described as Abstract Realism. Due to the spontaneity and unpredictability of watercolor, she finds this medium to eloquently capture the movement and mystery of the moment portrayed. Using a direct approach, she first paints dark pure colors, then slides into middle values, thus saving the lights as white paper. She uses various surfaces for her work including traditional watercolor papers, Yupo - a new exciting slick surface, and Washi, that combines watercolor and collage.
Robin Valenzuela has been creating colorful things nearly all her life, mainly influenced by her many creative family members. Her background includes a degree in apparel design and a career in computer graphics. Although she has taken various art courses throughout her life, Robin is mostly self-taught when it comes to paint and pastels. She starts with a drawing using her oil pastel "sticks" and then her rich vibrant colors are layered or blended using paint thinner and brushes.
Robin has been accepted for, and shown her work in many festivals throughout the Midwest and Southwest. She also reproduces many of her works into prints and note cards, and is a member of the Oil Pastel Society. She considers her work to be Contemporary Perspective. Vanzuela says, " I seem to have this somewhat humorous way of looking at things. I pick the small simple perspectives of something and turn it into a vivid drawing/painting that magnifies that object.
After Color Duet opens, the exhibit will be open to the public Tuesdays through Sundays at the Deines Cultural Center, 820 North Main until February 16th. The Center is open from 12:30 - 5:30 weekdays and 1:00 to 5:00 on weekends and is accessible to those with disabilities.
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