PRESS RELEASE

Stephen Yates: New Paintings
Opens October 6, 2007, 5-8pm
runs through December

On Saturday, October 6, The Art Mine will open its first exhibit for Stephen Yates. The show is accompanied by a full color, limited edition catalog with an introduction by Jake Seniuk and an essay by Galen Garwood. The exhibition is comprised of approximately 30 paintings completed by Yates over the past two years.

During his thirty-year career, Stephen has examined the boundaries between abstraction and representation of chosen geographic locations and botanical subject matter. With his heavily encrusted surfaces segueing into thin, smooth, glazed, and slightly holographic skins he yields a balance between muscularity and tender, relaxed passages of color, form and calligraphic mark making.

Ceremonializing the act of painting, Yates transcends literalness, embedding ghost images of plant-life, mountain ranges, and water environments into artwork that feels both liquid and solid. These paintings are about his place in the Pacific Northwest, and while they look and feel like our region, they also share the fundamental values of Chinese scroll paintings: an appreciation of a poetic, lyrical quality and the ability to capture the associated energy of the environment. This is the kind of painting where Yates finds solitude for his meditations and focuses his thoughts.

Yates was born in Pocatello, Idaho, 1952. He received his BFA at the University of Oregon, Eugene, and his MFA at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. His work has been widely exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, most recently at Patricia Cameron Gallery, Seattle, Northwind Arts Center, Port Townsend, and the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center. His work can be seen in many public and corporate collections such as Microsoft Corporation, University of Washington, Bothell, Evergreen State college, and both the city of Seattle and the City of Portland, among others.

For more information please contact the gallery: 360.379.8555 or info@theartmine.com