Through Observation:
Paintings by Ann Marie Magenau

Frame Shop Gallery
April 30, 2010 through July 24, 2010

A free public opening reception will be held during
Gallery Night, Friday, June 11, 2010 from 7–10 p.m.

Ann Magenau’s “Through Observation” displays the artist’s journeys from observation to ending. The works on view—oil paintings, charcoal and pastel drawings—do not present a central theme, but each represents a process which Magenau feels it takes her through. “I begin each work without knowing where it will take me,” she says, noting that “the process of transformation is not linear or logical, nor does it start with a predetermined destination.” She involves herself with the paint and process, becoming one with the moment.

The landscapes, portraits and still-lifes in the show are representational, with underlying abstract content. Magenau states that the subjects represented are “vehicles for different levels of involvement.” Her idea is that “the actual image of an object, landscape or human figure is but a point of departure or initial visual stimulus to start the process of a painting or drawing.” Through her subjects, Magenau hopes not to merely reproduce what she sees but instead to “let emotion, spontaneity and past experience transform the reality [she] started with.”

Through her works, Magenau feels she can express a form of communication that can’t be articulated through words. “It involves a balance between technical, physical, emotional and intellectual states that are in a constant state of evolution. If a painting could just be described in words, then I guess I’d be a writer.”

Magenau works from her Fairview, PA home. She began her studies under Joseph Plavcan in Erie and studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art before completing her BFA at the Kansas City Art Institute. She earned her MFA from SUNY Buffalo. She has had one-woman shows at the Artist’s Committee Gallery and the More-Rubin Gallery in Buffalo, NY, and at the Erie Art Center. Her works have also been exhibited in numerous juried and invitational exhibitions, including the Museum’s Annual Spring Show, the Marietta National, and the Western New York Exhibition of the Albright Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo.