CLAUDETTE CARTER ART MENTORS PROGRAM

April 21 – May 26, 2023

OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, April 21 from 5PM to 7PM

The Art Base is pleased to present the 2023 Claudette Carter ARTMentors Program culminating exhibition. The mentees + mentors have been hard at work! Five high school students from the Valley were chosen from a rigorous application process to work with practicing artists and creative professionals—in their respective artistic practices—to learn process and go from concept to creation to promotion of their artwork. ⁠⁠
⁠

Generously sponsored by Richard Carter.

⁠
1) SAMANTHA CERVANTES, junior at BHS +⁠
mentor Gail Folwell⁠
(Painting + Ceramics)⁠

2) GRIFFIN HARTLEY, sophomore at AHS +⁠
mentor Ryan Prince⁠
(Illustration)⁠

3) SOFIE KOSKI, freshman, home schooled +⁠
mentor Brian Colley⁠
(Illustration + Comic Making)⁠

4) JACKSON SCOTT, junior at AHS +⁠
mentor Trey Broomfield⁠
(Photography)⁠

5) SKYE WEMPE, junior at RFHS +⁠
mentor Linda Loeschen⁠
(Ceramics + Stained Glass)⁠

⁠

For more information, please CLICK HERE

SHELLY SAFIR MAROLT: UNDERNEATH

May 23 – June 23, 2023

OPENING RECEPTION with Artist Talk moderated by Suzan Obermeyer: Friday, May 26 from 4PM to 7PM

The Art Base is proud to present Shelly Safir Marolt’s solo exhibition, Underneath, featuring large-scale, Victorian-inspired portraits of women with a contemporary gaze and neon underlay, alongside smaller paintings with ink, mud, acrylic, glitter, and pastels celebrating the female form.

“I’m not an artist with a mission statement. I’ve never had one idea that followed through all of my work over the past 30 years. I paint what inspires me. I see something or read something, and I get a spark, an idea, and I paint.

Yes, I guess I paint mostly people or objects, which I treat like people, or parts of people. The work in the first part of this show started with a painter’s block. I painted my family’s past and other people’s family’s present. Black and white oils to neon and glitter acrylics. One day, after not having painted for months, I thought, “I’ll combine the two and see what happens.” I went online to find images of Victorian women and decided to use glitter and neon colors when panting them. While searching for the perfect image, I came across photos of Victorian women breastfeeding. The photos were so wild. The action didn’t fit the image. I thought this would be the perfect push and pull I needed to get back to painting. That’s how these paintings started. That’s how I work: a “let’s see what happens” philosophy. This show is what happened.

The second part of my show came from watching the television show PEN15. I revisited a hidden shame and shared it with a large audience. It was all about getting comfortable with something I had never talked about: masturbation in 7^th grade. It was something most kids, especially girls, never talked about and still don’t. With this show, let’s talk about it.

My process for each series is unique and individual to the pieces. The Victorian women paintings, for example, start with a neon underpainting. I then paint with acrylics and glitter using brushes. The vulva paintings were made differently, with ink, mud, acrylic, glitter, and pastels and painted with tree branches and brushes. They are more organic and immediate.”