The Art Marketer

The 6th Annual Living Mark Opening Reception, Portland, Oregon

Christine Alfery's 'Cliff' Selected for 6th Annual Living Mark Exhibition

at Verum Ultimum Art Gallery in Portland, Oregon

Opening Reception - Saturday, June 29th from 6-8pm!

Christine Alfery is among the 41 artists whose work, Cliff, an acrylic painting that measures 40x30, has been selected as a winning entry to Verum Ultimum's 6th Annual Living Mark Exhibition. There will be over 41 works of art showcased at the exhibition, which opens at the Portland, Oregon Art Gallery this weekend.

An Opening Reception is planned for Saturday, June 29th from 6-8pm.

The show runs through August 10th. 

 

About the Call to Artists for this Exhibition

The Gallery's 'Call to Artists' invited artists to explore 'The Living Mark' for the sixth year in a row and enter work that is any interpretation of the call. The intention of the call was not to drive the work, but to spark an impetus, and discover unique visions to showcase.  All mediums were welcome.

Mark making is an integral part of the creative process and the evidence of the artist’s hand is always exciting to see.  The most successful works seem to be enlivened by these marks (whether abstract or representational).  This call emphasizes the process with a focus on the individual style of the art maker (whether impassioned, studied, or subdued).  What kind of marks and/or mediums does an artist employ that leads to great results?  Or perhaps the artist's interpretation of the theme is a chance to express that art is a metaphor for (or reflection of) life itself and our relationship to this driving force? What is the artists' personal interpretation of this metaphoric or symbolic vehicle, “The Living Mark”?

A distinct visual story MARKS this years’ Living Mark. One with a depth of narrative that reflects the current political/emotional climate while maintaining a balance with the visceral act of mark making and the mark of our legacy of belief systems ….with a few wild cards to keep things fresh and interesting!  -Jennifer Gillia Custhall, Verum Ultimum Art Gallery Founder, Owner, Director and Curator

 

About Christine Alfery

Christine Alfery has been creating and selling her art since the 1960’s. In the 1990’s she was a creative force on the national interior design scene. As her style has evolved, so has the interest, intrigue and demand for her work. Christine’s paintings have been widely exhibited in museums, galleries and in corporate and private collections throughout the United States and the world.

Her artistic style shows a maturity that comes from a lifetime of creative exploration. Christine’s “experimental abstractions” are filled with playful iconic symbols which enable her to “integrate the real with the abstract”. Christine is deeply influenced by the abstract expressionists, including: Hans Hofman, Mark Rothko, Elaine and Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler and Cy Twombly, to name a few, yet her style is uniquely her own.

Christine earned her Bachelors of Science degree, her Master’s degree in Education, her MFA degree and her Ph.D in Contemporary Art History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

She shows her contemporary, conceptual watercolor and acrylic paintings nationally and internationally. She competes in watercolor competitions around the world. Christine has won over 100 national awards and is a signature member of 10 national watercolor societies throughout the United States. She has been in more than 65 publications.

For more information about Christine, visit her website: www.christinealfery.com.

Should you wish to purchase any artworks, please contact https://christinealfery.net/contact/

 

The Verum Ultimum Art Gallery is located on

3014 NE Ainsworth

Portland, Oregon  97211

phone: 347-752-8915

email: [email protected]

Verum Ultimum Art Gallery 6th Annual Living Mark Exhibition

*All rights reserved on content & images. Permission must be granted to reproduce either and/or both.

Image shown above center: Cliff, 40x30, acrylic on paper, by Christine Alfery

Christine Alfery's Use of Playful Symbols in her Work

There is so much more than meets the eye in each of Christine Alfery's paintings. At first glance, they radiate with exuberance, vitality, energy and joy. When one reads each of their titles, the images that first inspired the artist become more clear within their abstraction.

Look even further within each canvas and you will notice the recurring use of marks, distinctive symbols the artist incorporates to tell even more of a story with each painting she creates. Spend some time deciphering and understanding these symbols and you will not only come to better understand the artist and her work, but you may also come to better understand yourself through interpreting what each of those symbols may mean to you. 

 

My artwork is like a story board that speaks to my philosophical beliefs about life, the roads I have traveled and the questions I have asked and tried to answer. My work speaks to the concept of choice and the change. Change will always happen, choice is about individual freedom that can or cannot help form our realities and what we believe in. 

 

I have developed quite a few icons and marks that relate to my philosophical beliefs. How we understand reality and the mystical come from our foundations. Our personal foundations are unique and one of a kind. These foundations become part of the life forces, the life energy that lies within us and what does or doesn't drive us. What we choose to do with these life forces should also be unique and personal just to us. These choices can change us, they can transform us or trap us.

-Christine Alfery

 

 

Here are some of the marks that keep appearing in my work - they tell a story, they relate universally to all of us, but what they mean and represent in my work is unique to me. Without representation they mean nothing to anyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Imagine a sheet of paper. Place a dot on it. Imagine that dot is you. Now take that piece of paper and crumble it up into a tight ball. Where are you in this labyrinth? What are you touching? What are you connected to? Are you inside? Are you outside? My work is about journeys I have taken trying to reach the impossible, to see the invisible, trying to reach the unreachable. Trying to reach, the stars, the moon, the sunset, never never land, wonderland, infinity, the imaginary and the real. It is about exploring possibilities using fences and ladders to cross barriers and bridges that span the unknowable gaps and beyond. It is about the journey of searching, exploring, and discovering, always trying to find the outside or the inside, of that crumbled up tight wad of paper, always reaching for the stars.  -Christine Alfery

 

ABOUT CHRISTINE ALFERY:

Christine Alfery has been creating and selling her art since the 1960’s. In the 1990’s she was a creative force on the national interior design scene. As her style has evolved, so has the interest, intrigue and demand for her work. Christine’s paintings have been widely exhibited in museums, galleries and in corporate and private collections throughout the United States and the world.

Her artistic style shows a maturity that comes from a lifetime of creative exploration. Christine’s “experimental abstractions” are filled with playful iconic symbols which enable her to “integrate the real with the abstract”. Christine is deeply influenced by the abstract expressionists, including: Hans Hofman, Mark Rothko, Elaine and Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler and Cy Twombly, to name a few, yet her style is uniquely her own.

Christine earned her Bachelors of Science degree, her Master’s degree in Education, her MFA degree and her Ph.D in Contemporary Art History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

She shows her contemporary, conceptual watercolor and acrylic paintings nationally and internationally. She competes in watercolor competitions around the world. Christine has won over 100 national awards and is a signature member of 10 national watercolor societies throughout the United States. She has been in more than 65 publications.

For more information about Christine, visit her website: www.christinealfery.com.

 

WHERE TO FIND CHRISTINE'S WORK: 

Christine Alfery will be exhibiting with Artblend Gallery at Art Market Hamptons, in Bridgehampton, NY, the weekend of July 5th thru 7th, 2019.

You may also visit our Facebook Event Page for this Event.

Her work may be seen at The Evalyn Dunn Gallery in Westfield, NJ.

She is also represented by  The Art Marketer of Shelter Island Heights, NY.

For more information, please visit her website at: www.christinealfery.com.

Or contact The Art Marketer at [email protected].

Should you wish to purchase any artworks, please contact https://christinealfery.net/contact/

*All rights reserved on content & images. Permission must be granted to reproduce either and/or both.

Images shown: Top left, Flying Circus, 40x30 watercolor & acrylic on paper; Top right, Flying Machine II, 8x8 watercolor & acrylic; Middle right, What We Love, 8x8 watercolor & acrylic; Bottom, Migration, 20x60 acrylic on paper. By Christine Alfery

Lady Blue and Her Magic Cape At The Circus, by Christine Alfery Scores Cover of June ACES Magazine!

Lady Blue and Her Magic Cape At the Circus, an acrylic painting on canvas by Contemporary Conceptual Artist, Christine Alfery, adorns the Cover of ACES Magazine this month!

 

The painting, which measures 60x50, is a featured work from Christine's At the Circus series that will be one of five paintings on display at Christine's exhibition with Artblend Gallery at Art Market Hamptons in Bridgehampton, NY this July 5th-7th 2019.

 

Inspired by the film, The Greatest Showman, Christine's At the Circus series draws from her rich childhood memories of the circus coming to town, and the impressions that these magical images left on her young imagination. Christine has shared that these memories of the circus fit right in with the way she looks at art as something unique and original for every performance.

 

Christine further expresses: "I create paintings with as much childlike freedom as I can gather from such memories as an adult, encumbered in an adult world. I think as I create - how can I think and paint with the freedom I had as a child, going to magical places like a circus, where impossible things happen, where you can dream and laugh a little, dance and twirl around, wearing magical capes that engulf you in a fantasy world of fun?"

 

This particular painting also inspired a poem by her friend, the esteemed poet, Elizabeth Tornes, which further brings these images and childhood memories to life through the power of poetry.

 

At the Circus

by Elizabeth Tornes

Inspired by Christine Alfery's 'At the Circus' series of paintings

 

Who are these women

who flame up, spin and whirl

in velvet robes, ballet dresses,

bedecked in jewels and spandex? Lady Blue

strides to the ropes, her mouth a ring of red,

blonde tresses flying, flips

over the trapeze easily

as a chimp, swings dizzily above us.

She rides a bike on the tightwire

while balancing a parasol

on the tip of her nose.

 

The clown's face is a cross,

red slashes on white face, Her blue dog

leaps from barrel to barrel,

dances in circles on the horse's back.

Proud and bejeweled

as Austro-Hungarian queens,

these women carry the burden of being

an artist in a man's world. I want to live

like them, in a dream of my own making, fold

myself into a magic blue cape,

disappear, and reappear at will,

dazzling in a spotlight.

 

The poem has also been reprinted in the June 2019 issue of ACES Magazine, along with a story about Christine Alfery and her work. This marks the 6th Anniversary Edition of ACES Magazine, a monthly publication covering the Arts, Culture, Entertainment Scene & More on Long Island and beyond. We are beyond excited to be a major feature in this celebratory edition Celebrating the Arts on Long Island! Thank-you Amy Oliver, Publisher & Editor extraordinaire! 

 

If you live on Long Island or Queens, you can find a print copy of ACES at any of these locations.

Otherwise, you may access the digital copy of the publication here.

ACES June 2019 6th Anniversary Edition!  

ABOUT CHRISTINE ALFERY:

Christine Alfery has been creating and selling her art since the 1960’s. In the 1990’s she was a creative force on the national interior design scene. As her style has evolved, so has the interest, intrigue and demand for her work. Christine’s paintings have been widely exhibited in museums, galleries and in corporate and private collections throughout the United States and the world.

Her artistic style shows a maturity that comes from a lifetime of creative exploration. Christine’s “experimental abstractions” are filled with playful iconic symbols which enable her to “integrate the real with the abstract”. Christine is deeply influenced by the abstract expressionists, including: Hans Hofman, Mark Rothko, Elaine and Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler and Cy Twombly, to name a few, yet her style is uniquely her own.

Christine earned her Bachelors of Science degree, her Master’s degree in Education, her MFA degree and her Ph.D in Contemporary Art History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

She shows her contemporary, conceptual watercolor and acrylic paintings nationally and internationally. She competes in watercolor competitions around the world. Christine has won over 100 national awards and is a signature member of 10 national watercolor societies throughout the United States. She has been in more than 65 publications.

For more information about Christine, visit her website: www.christinealfery.com.

 

WHERE TO FIND CHRISTINE'S WORK: 

Christine Alfery will be exhibiting with Artblend Gallery at Art Market Hamptons, in Bridgehampton, NY, the weekend of July 5th thru 7th, 2019. You may also visit our Facebook Event Page for this Event.

Her work may be seen at The Evalyn Dunn Gallery in Westfield, NJ.

She is also represented by  The Art Marketer of Shelter Island Heights, NY.

For more information, please visit her website at: www.christinealfery.com.

Or contact The Art Marketer at [email protected].

Should you wish to purchase any artworks, please contact https://christinealfery.net/contact/

 

*All rights reserved on content & images. Permission must be granted to reproduce either and/or both.