OPENING RECEPTION: 1ST THURSDAY, AUGUST 4TH | FROM 5-8pm
Sullivan Goss - An American Gallery is pleased to announce its ninth solo exhibition for Santa Barbara based painter ANGELA PERKO.
In her newest body of work, Angela continues to weave mytho-historical themes and iconography together with brilliant color and intricate design. The artist’s recurring interest in how women are represented is rendered especially vivid in seventeen 10 by 10 inch oil paintings - each one showcasing a female fertility figure from a different historical culture. A few of these are from the ancient Mexican village of Tlatilco (1200 to 200 BC), which means The Place of Hidden Things. And there are many hidden things in Angela's paintings–things that are partially buried or veiled by leaves, things that are both plainly significant and yet somehow inscrutable. In her new catalog, the artist writes that her paintings and icons are “an attempt to make sense of the long history of human joy and suffering. Often they start with an interesting visual, a poem or a piece of literature. Then the idea grows, like a vine stretching out its tendrils, creeping into different worlds and times. There is perhaps a story hidden within each painting, about things like love and death, faith and redemption.”
Writing about her suite of seventeen fertility figures, “The idea to paint a series was inspired in part by Kehinde Wiley’s Equestrian Portrait of Prince Tommaso of Savoy-Carigan. I admired the painting when it was displayed at our local [Santa Barbara] museum. For me, it seemed that Wiley was attempting to visually fill a gaping hole in our mythology in a most grand and dramatic fashion… The little women are not grand, but together they tell an absolutely essential human story.”
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Angela Perko has been represented by Sullivan Goss since 2005. Although she took plein air painting lessons from Michael Drury and continues to do figurative drawing in a classroom setting, she is essentially self-taught. She and her husband own the Lost Horizon bookstore in Montecito, where she is exposed to an almost endless stream of ideas for her work.
In her newest body of work, Angela Perko continues to weave mytho-historical themes and iconography together with brilliant color and intricate design.
The artist’s recurring interest in how women are represented is rendered especially vivid in 10-by-10 inch oil paintings showcasing a female fertility figure from a different historical culture. A few of these are from the ancient Mexican village of Tlatilco (1200 to 200 BC), which means “The Place of Hidden Things.” And that’s the title of Ms. Perko’s ninth exhibition on view through Sept. 26 at Sullivan Goss: An American Gallery.
Art’s responsibility has always been to interpret experiences during trying times; it’s a worthy vessel for our collective remembrances, as well as our trauma. Could there be a more prescient and urgent display of artistic expression in Santa Barbara than Angela Perko’s current show at Sullivan Goss Gallery, The Place of Hidden Things? I doubt it.
Angela Perko is fascinated by precious objects, and her recent series of paintings focuses on ancient female fertility figures. Perko’s paintings are always packed with quiet symbolism and deep layers of meaning; and while her new works acknowledge that women have been constantly reproduced as objects over time—from Paleolithic venus figurines to plastic Barbie dolls—the females showcased here were revered as powerful fertility symbols.
