Sheila Finch

An accomplished artist who has studied abroad in various countries Sheila Finch sees the elegant subtlety in colors dismissed by the casual viewer. This continued exploration of color is captured in her current series of skyscapes that both mesmerize and enchant as the viewer dances across through an array of beautiful tonal shifts throughout her work to evoke a mood of peace and serenity. The longer one looks upon her work the more one tends to see which is the beauty of natures more abstracted features. Read more about the artist below and explore her work more extensively on our website, www.hansongalleryfineart.com. 

Ask Sheila Finch if she is an artist, and she replies “Yes, that is who I am.” Not 'what', but 'who’. The deep truth of this statement has been borne out over and over as she has become the latest source of delightful works for private and corporate art collectors around the globe. Landscapes on the verge of abstracts reveal both her passion and her genius for color, for creating not just a scene, but the mood it engenders, as well.

Living and painting from her boat, Sheila gathers scenes from the sea to build a repertoire of visually stunning images. Her skyscapes show the acumen of a painter who knows water. Her art floats between the ethereal realm of abstraction and the concrete texture of realism.

Her genius with color developed early in her life. It began at the age of 13 in Ohio when her boyfriend made her a gift of watercolors and an easel. “I was impressed. These were professional artist supplies! He eventually became my husband',” she laughs. Her mother, also an artist, enrolled her in a class to study with a regional artist, concentrating on the basics of studio painting, her only formal training. At the age of 16, Sheila sold her first work and has since been a productive and successful artist who has sold works to corporate and private collectors both here and abroad. It was during this early period that she created her first award-winning work.

In 1992, Sheila and her family moved to Germany, where she first began painting outdoors, from real life, in the little village where she lived, Hutschenhausen. Sheila joined a professional painting artists tour through France. Included among the en-plein-air stops was a day of painting in Monet's Giverny gardens. She credits this experience for triggering a “quantum leap in my creative development.”

“I began to focus on a more abstracted style of landscape, becoming less interested in painting specific details, and much more interested in the thousands of subtle shades of warm and cool colors from nature,” Sheila recalls. As she developed her new style, she would seek out books on art and artists.

“When I first saw the work of the color field artist Marc Rothko, I was intrigued by the manner in which my eyes perceived colors as my gaze followed the edges of the large blocks of color in each painting... how my perception of the hues changed. For example, an outer color that is purple could make an interior area of yellow ochre look green instead of yellow... a muted brown next to a pure swatch of ultramarine blue made the blue look so much brighter... This was the beginning of my intense exploration of the use of color and pattern to create an emotional impression,” she recalls. “Another artist who has had a profound influence on my work is Wolf Kahn, for a similar reason, even though his landscapes are very different from Rothko's abstracts.” While in Europe, Finch had exhibits in Paris, and Germany.

Coastal Clouds Series #3

Moving to Northern California has again taken her work to a new level. “California is so visually stimulating, I cannot paint my emotional responses quickly enough to capture them all. I remember my first trip into the Sierras and not being able to breath. It wasn't the altitude,” she laughs, “we weren't that far above sea level yet!”

Through her use of color, Sheila strives to recreate strong, emotional impacts on the viewer. “I find I am drawn to images of landscapes that boarder on the abstract, and to abstracts which have a somewhat organic, defined nature,” she explains. Sheila has been featured multiple times by Gold River Scene Magazine and recognized by the National Arts Appreciation Program and Le Bateau Lavoir in Paris.

Corporate Collections
Carnegie Foundation, California
Intuit Corporation, California
Johnson & Johnson
Sutter Roseville Medical Center, California
The Lily Company, California
Charter Publishing Company, California

Scott Hanson-48 Plates

48 Plates

Travelling the Unites States with his family and visiting its vast array of beautiful sights compelled the artist Scott Hanson to capture those fond memories in a meaningful way. As Scott and his family journeyed from state to state they loved how they would often see licence plates either pinned up or artfully displayed in some way or another along fences or upon the sides of barns as they traveled the roadways. This lead to a hobby of collecting licence plates from each state they traveled to. As any collector likes to do, Scott displayed each unaltered plate on a wall within their home approximating their position within a rudimentary representation of the United States. This went on until they had collected a plate from each state.

Seeing all the plates presented together upon the wall led Scott to come up with the idea of cutting each of the plates into the shapes of the states they represented. He furthered learned stained glass window techniques so that he could apply a beautiful silver border around each state binding them together while showing off their individuality. After experimenting with a variety of canvases he finally settled on cold pressed steel which served as a beautiful and elegant contrast to the soldering used throughout the piece. Once he presented his gift to the family the first "48 Plates" became a beloved and permanent fixture in the home. As time went on and more of Scott's friends and colleagues would drop by the house and hint that he should share this with the world.

Hence forth from a labor of love was born the first ever representation of the United States in the form of licence plates and after being sold across the globe and represented in multiple museum collections for nearly two decades the 48 Plates still remains the only one made entirely of metal. Since then the artist has produced other popular incarnations including the 50 plates, California the Golden State and even other countries such as the Canada Plates. What has made the 48 Plates so successful is that it represents what Scott initially set out to do and that was to capture fond memories with his family so when he makes one for someone he tries to capture the meaningful aspects of each plate such as an iconic image or a memorable tagline from each state so in essence he achieves telling a narrative. He also likes to have a nice mixture of vintage and newer plates to give the composition history and a fun anecdote the artist likes to share is that collectively with each one made the owner will have a piece that has had on average of five million miles driven on it.

For questions or more information please email us at info@hansongalleryfineart.com or call us 415-332-1815.

Sergio Martinez

Chilean born artist Sergio Martinez astutely captures through use of oil the elegance and beauty of the human form. Often focusing on dancers mid technique he perfectly evokes a sense of momentum while masterfully painting the suppleness of skin and and the musculature underlying it. The artist finds such challenges fulfilling and the hyper-realism leaves the viewer in doubt that such gorgeous figurative forms could be accomplished in the medium of oil. He now resides in Spain where he continues to dominate the figurative art world with his impressive works. Read more about him below from our website, Hanson Gallery.

Piernas II

Sergio Martínez Cifuentes was born in Concepción, Chile, on the 7th of July 1966. When he was still a boy, he excelled in drawing, which along with his poems and short musical compositions began to mould his adolescent persona into a romantic and an existentialist form. It was during this phase that he took part in many youth art competitions where he obtained a significant number of prizes, which helped him understand the true importance of his relationship with plastic arts and so he started his self-teaching process.
During his first phase he took to descriptive realism, and showed great mastery of forms and an elegant and contained use of colour in his landscapes, which were his main subject. In 1987 he married Lizeth who became the first subject of his first portraits and nudes, with which he discovered a new challenge in the human form. This he has proved by making the nude the subject which from the 1990s has dominated almost all of his canvases. From their beginning, his portraits became an important part of this artist’s work. He is not happy merely to find a simple likeness of the person who is being painted: in his search for perfectionism he hopes to capture the gestures and crucial features of the person. He is associated with the Pre-Raphaelites, because of the interesting interpretive brushstrokes in his compositions, and the effects of volume and light do not seem to be difficult to him. For eleven years he directed his own painting workshops (1992-2003) in Concepción, Chile, with a large number of people with whom he has exhibited important works in the city. Since 2002 he has taken part in international art fairs of which Caracas, Buenos Aires, California and New York are worthy of mention. Since the end of 2002 he has been represented by Global Fine art in the United States and Canada. 2003 saw him complete a mural in Kingston College in Concepción. He later moved to Spain and settled in Madrid where he lives today. From 2004 Sergio Martínez has worked with the prestigious Sammer Gallery which has a permanent exhibition of his works. In recent years he has exhibited in various European galleries such as the Albemarle Gallery in London and the Vazquez Kunst Gallery in Blaricum, Holland. At present his work is exhibited in the Cuadro Fine Art Gallery in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This spring he is invited to exhibit in Gallery Petley’s in London. Today we are likely to find Sergio surrounded by large canvases with stunning scenes of beautiful dancers. It deeply evokes the harmony and the beauty of the careful poses. He has been immersed in his “Dancers” series for over two years and it will shortly be launched. According to the artist: “ Dancers are a inexhaustible resource which is tremendously seductive, by depicting them I can transmit things; they take comfort in each other, they confide in each other, they wait for auditions, they gaze at the audience from behind the curtains and they apply make-up. Whatever it is you have to say, whether it is simple or complicated, is transformed into beauty when it is said by means of a gesture or a movement by these magical performers”.

For questions or more information please email us info@hansongalleryfineart.com or call us at 415-332-1815. 

Anthony Emmolo

Anthony Emmolo takes a fully immersive approach to his art seeing the experience that leads to the creation of a work as part of the work itself. Having lived much of his life throughout various areas of Asia Anthony’s masterpieces tell a rich story of tradition and culture through a beautiful pallet of soft and vibrant contrasting colors. The precise and elegant arrangement of objects throughout each piece exemplifies their individual importance but also creates a harmonious balance compositionally. Read more about Anthony’s amazing journey and how they influences his art below which is from www.hansongalleryfineart.com.

In Support of Above

The silence of the world of Asian temples would be the perfect setting for sincere self-study and self-expression. Knowing this, Anthony moved his studio to Taipei, Taiwan with the aim to remain in Asia for ten years. The year was 1988; he was 24 years old and had just graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York City...

Since that point in his life, he has visited many countries, walking everywhere with his sketchbooks. Writing notes and drawing pictures helps to open his mind to a world of different sights, sounds and smells that are uniquely Asian. He paints some of the objects that have come closest to his heart. The refined handle of a Chinese calligraphy brush with its horsehair. Teapots and Sake pots that were there with him during his moments spent with friends and the moonlight. Many of these treasures traveled with the artist to The Great Wall of China, Yellow Mountain, along the Yang Tze River, to Korea and Japan, to temples and on train rides throughout the countryside, as drinking tea has long been his way to commune with nature, or with the people of a village.

An object loses significance when it is displayed as a part of a large group. In a Zen temple, the Japanese monks will display one piece of pottery on a shelf that could hold many. In this way the pottery is revealed and the viewer is able to celebrate the color, texture, its perfections and imperfections. This is the essence of Emmolo’s work.

After a six year Taipei, Taiwan experience, the artist moved to Kyoto, Japan where his art changed forever. "The refined impressions of Kyoto are a teacher in themselves. They feed a person with a harmony of color, space and texture in a way that I've not seen in any other culture." When he visited a Noh drama theatre for the first time he saw clearly that divinity can speak to a person through art. It was on that evening that he created the aim to never pick up the paintbrush until he could "be there" with the brush. "And that is when painting took on a higher meaning for me."

In the year 2003, after four years in Northern California, the artist embarked on yet another Asian experience. This time home became Shanghai, China. Shanghai, a modern city bustling with 20,000,000 people is situated an hour or so away from a number of classical Chinese villages. It was there that Emmolo could penetrate some of the deepest of the ancient Chinese arts. Tea ceremony, dance, flower arrangement, sculpture and painting became his newest interests.

It was in Shanghai that he created his beloved Art For The Heart, which is a charitable project that allows his art to serve society.

For questions or more information please email us at info@hansongalleryfineart.com or call us at 415-332-1815.

Denis Ribas

Born in Perpingnan France and now living in Catalonia Denis Ribas has seen much beauty throughout his life and as an athlete who spends time outdoors it is no wonder that he developed the desire to paint his surroundings, both urban and natural. Unique in his method is a modern impressionistic style of thick paint much like impasto painting infused with an art deco palette. As an active person in life he likes to see art as a process and to him a painting is not complete until he sees and hears the reaction of the viewer. This is the moment he enjoys the most about a painting because it reminds him of his reactions to his subject matter and his ability to approach life with youthful wonder as if it is being experienced for the first time. Below is an excerpt from our website, http://www.hansongalleryfineart.com.

Place de la Liberte. Ceret

A proud Catalan, Denis Ribas was born in Perpignan in 1954.During his childhood his father, a famous mountaineer and writer, instilled in him his passion for nature.
Denis originally trained at the Perpignon School of Fine Arts. Denis only paints
en plein air (outdoors).

As soon as the artist has selected the landscape based on the angles, the hour of the day, and the brightness of colors he paints on the finest linen.

For questions or more information please email us at info@hansongalleryfineart.com or call us at 415-332-1815.

Jean Wells began mosaic work at a very young age as an apprentice to her father who created the beautiful tile work that can be seen at the St. Demetrios Greek Church in Seattle. From then she was set on a path and now, much like her current body of work, she has become a larger than life success to the point where she now creates her own mosaic tiles so that she can have the exact pieces she is looking for her iconic creations of everyday objects ranging from popular food items to cosmetic goods. They are fun and glamorous creations. She draws inspiration from the pop culture artists of our time but on a deeper level make a statement about our culture and the American diet. Read more about her from our website www.hansongalleryfineart.com below. 

Ice Cream Cone

Like her Pop Art Predecessors Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Claes Oldenburg mosaic artist Jean Wells dabbles in the everyday. Wells began sculpting in the late 1980's using an array of materials and objects. Playful, and full of technical finesse, the artist offers not only visual pleasures, but stimulating food for thought with her Pop icons of ice cream, soda and pin up queens. Fitting neatly into an art historical discourse that revolves around the loaded topic of consumerism, Jean Wells also invokes more rarefied luminaries such as Nikki de Saint Phalle, Wayne Thiebaud and Takashi Murakami.

Like many postmodern artists working with a blend of pop culture iconography and autobiography, Jean Wells' work is charming and nostalgic, yet packs a punch with its satisfying bite of underlying poignancy, offering an authentic and personal undercurrent that balances the lyrical.

Jean Wells is deeply inspired by her sumptuous materials, and works with an exquisite palette of beautifully colored glass that she has custom created for her sculptures. These unique glass creations provide her with an incredibly wide selection of tones, qualities of reflection and color gradations, allowing her to shade forms, variegate and layer colors with great precision and nuance. She hand cuts the glass, and keeps a reserve of tiny scrap pieces that allow her to add details and touches of color that keep the surfaces lively and variable. Like many artists, she relies upon her personal history, imagination and even her dream life to arrive at the ideas she will pursue as actual objects.

Raised in the wholesome landscape of the evergreen Pacific Northwest, Jean Wells was born into a large artistic family with a strong traditional skill set grounded in such old world techniques such as fresco secco, realism and mosaics. At an early age the young artist apprenticed with her father, mosaic artist Thomas Wells, and learned the painstaking craft and iconography of classical Byzantine-style mosaics as he completed a large commission for the prestigious and architecturally celebrated St. Demetrios Greek Church in Seattle. Having worked for a number of years in paintings and ceramics, Jean Wells has recently rediscovered her love of mosaics and in keeping with her playful, trickster nature, she prefers to turn the traditional uses of this medium on their head and make sculpture instead of murals.

Generally speaking, she prefers to make everything herself, with only a modicum of help from studio assistants. She may use found objects, such as telephones, antiques, appliances, or other household objects or she may carve large durable yet lightweight structures in foam that allow her to play with a larger scale. Initially appearing at the San Diego Museum of Art November 2007, her largest works to date are the “Urban Fruit Trees” which rise up to seventeen feet tall and span a width of eleven feet wide with their branches adorned with Jean Wells' signature candies, confections, burgers and pop and the similarly sized “Giant Kiss (Kissing Booth)” which debuted to rave reviews at the December 2010 LA Art Fair. Jean Wells is aiming to go very large with her various figures, installations and objects, and is rapidly coming to terms with various technical requirements of scaling her sculptures to even greater heights. Installations such as the “Lipsticks”, “Urban Fruit Trees” and “Phantom” all range from fifteen to twenty feet tall.

While it is certainly possible to simply enjoy Jean Wells' sparkling artworks as beautiful and playful romps in a shiny candy land of fun and color, the discerning viewer will also be rewarded by the more thought provoking aspects of personal narrative, cultural context and feminist concerns which are located in these inspired sculptures. Even though she offers these sculptures as outsized players in the big game of 'real art,' Jean Wells is also content to let us have some fun and pleasure along the way, and in a time where real life is scary enough, it is refreshing to have some moments of genuine innocence.

For questions or more information please email us info@hansongalleryfineart.com or call us at 415-332-1815. 

Hines

The beautifully nebulous quality of Hines artwork captures a visceral moment that begs to be seized. Much depth is achieved through the composition of colors as they transition through a range of values lending to a sense of voluminosity with passages waiting to be explored to a far off distance that can be seen through an fading diving line. The colors themselves are transcendent and calming in their ethereal environment. Coming from a background that places him at the epicenter of two of the biggest movements of Abstract Expressionism, New York and San Francisco, Hines has distinguished himself through a fusion of multiple influences. Below is an excerpt form our website www.hansongalleryfineart.com.

Untitled 7/11

The Artist Hines is a full time artist living and painting in Sausalito, California. Hines began as a pencil artist but in 1994 he began exploring painting. By 2000, bored with the rigidity of representational painting Hines became interested in abstraction and began studying works from the New York school of abstract expressionism particularly the artists Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman and Franz Kline. 

In 2003 Hines moved to the Bay area to be with his now wife, Dinene. He joined the Artists Guild of San Francisco and began regularly exhibiting his abstract paintings. His abstract paintings evolved to include mixed medium, collage, figurative abstraction and what he terms “intuitive painting.

“Boundless Color”

In June of 2010 responding to changes in his personal life and wishing to return to a more classical approach to painting, Hines decided to abandoned texture and focus on color and expressive brushstrokes. The edges in his paintings softened or disappeared at the same time he began to intensify and expand his range of colors. The style of these new paintings is ethereal having an atmospheric, sometimes celestial feel to them, reminiscent of J. W. Turner. Hines’ approach to color and blending creates beautiful transitions of colors while his flowing brushstrokes express the spontaneity of emotion and movement.        

For questions or more information please email us at info@hansongalleryfineart.com or call us at (415) 332-1815.