Profiles of Contemporary Art and - ARTisSpectrum

Chantal Westby
Learned and formally trained in design, painter Chantal Westby
nevertheless creates an intuitive, energetic world of whimsy on her
canvases. Neat and clean in her use of line, Westby’s works express
an evocative feeling of vigor and vivaciousness. With a sumptuously
controlled color palette, these works are graceful in their spiritual fluidity
of rhythm and measure. Imaginative and meticulous in skill, they sparkle
through the artist’s nuanced approach to the outside world. Translated
and inspired by poignant artistic and truthful vision, this world comes
alive for an eclectic audience. At once ardently personal and uniquely
universal, Westby’s works evoke the timeless beauty of our shared
universe, articulated in her purity of form and line. A natural color palette
places us in the tangible, yet the shapes and compositions whisk us away
to a deeper, mystical place. “My work culminates and finds that point of
engagement in the representation of the intense spiritual content of the
visible world, in my overwhelming certainty of the existence of a higher
power, directing not just our meager human efforts, but also all order or
disorder that exists in the universe,” says Westby. With a certificate in
“haute couture,” in clothing design from a school in Paris, Chantal Westby
has committed her life to aesthetics. She lives and works in Bryn Mawr,
Pennsylvania.
www.Agora-Gallery.com/ArtistPage/Chantal_Westby.aspx
Fortunes Wheel
Mixed Media & Acrylic on Canvas 48” x 36”
Petra Thölken
Verlorene Würde Acrylic with Gold on Canvas 48” x 48”
The subject matter of Petra Thölken’s paintings is the
complexity of being alive – more specifically, the interface
between what we perceive to be the inner and outer worlds of
sensation. In fact, her work shows us that the boundary between
the two is quite permeable. Through her skillful melding of
technique and inspiration, her writhing forms remind us that the
eye is a curved lens which necessarily distorts any light going
through it. We create the sense and logic of what we see, and
to say that these stirringly colored works contain this narrative
aspect is not to limit them – on the contrary, there is an impressive
logic to how her tonal visions ripple across the canvas.
For this artist, “Painting is the language of endless words,” an
assertion that emphasizes the infinite possibilities of color and form
which she explores in her work. There is often an intense focus on
the center of the canvas, a choice she makes repeatedly, so that the
choice becomes an archetypal gesture weighty with significance,
repeated and yet also engaged in endless variations. The visual
balance of her compositions adds to the juxtaposition of beauty and
how we perceive it. In her confidence and control, Petra Thölken
creates art which is continually engaging, vital and dynamic.
www.kuenstlerstreich.de
www.Agora-Gallery.com/ArtistPage/Petra_Tholken.aspx
77 ARTisSpectrum