The Doris Gallery

Leslie Martin returns to the Doris Gallery with new work sharing a view of the world through the faces of a diverse cast of characters. These include family members, her mother’s and father’s ancestors from Florida and Appalachia, celebrities, and anonymous yet familiar women. Some of the paintings communicate to us about the lost times and places of the past, others bear a spiritual manifestation. Leslie paints the magical, unexplained, and cinematic nature of dreams. Fresno landmarks represent a bygone time of people and places including local bands she loved and performed with like the Max Lowenstein Trio, the Miss Allens, and Sippy and Old Guzzler. Some of the faces belong to unknown yet familiar people who exemplify a particular time and place through their blonde hair with dark roots, or orange chiffon dress.

Martin lost two dear family members last year, a portrait of her cousin Dale is included along with the portraits of Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond and Liza Minelli she painted for him. He enjoyed making up stories about what the people in the paintings were saying to each other on his bedroom wall. The people in Martin’s people dwell in worlds with strokes of intense color and the flattening of the picture plane, recalling the work of Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse in the early 20th century.

Tracy Carrera; Reflecting the Senses

Through their imagery, artists have the ability to create the worlds they would like to see, or celebrate the world we do see. This is what Tracy Carrera does in the small oil paintings displayed on the Doris Gallery brick wall Doris Gallery at Fresno Music Academy and Arts in the Tower district this month. Twentieth century artist and teacher Hans Hoffman wrote, “A work of art is a world in itself reflecting senses and emotions of the artist’s world.” Examining personal connection and healing, Carrera's artwork reflects her unique place in the world--as an identical twin and daughter of a shaman/artist.

Carrera's fascination with deep connections, and the desire to form them stems from growing up inseparable from her twin. She believes that connections in their many forms--with animals, the earth, or the sacred divine, are especially important today. Painting the physical shells in which our spirits live, her work displays an abiding interest in human beings, the choices we make, and the different ways in which we “set ourselves free” and elevate our existence. Carrera is not a healer herself but through her father she is conversant with the healing qualities of art. The process of painting can be a healing meditation, a medicine for the artist. And when completed, her paintings of friends hold the power to remind them, and the rest of us of the splendor we possess as people.

Works are on view for ArtHop July 7 5-8pm, and throughout the month of July during business hours.