Exhibit tips hat to environment
The Gotthelf Gallery goes green with “Reclaim, Rework, Recreate,” its current exhibit devoted entirely to art created from recycled and repurposed materials. The display showcases the creativity of Tony Berlanz, Liz Mamorsky, Marilyn Mitchell and Jody Silver with 38 pieces in a range of media, including jewelry.
According to gallery chair Randy Savarese, the Gotthelf is presenting the show in order to encourage the community to think of ways to recycle and conserve resources in their everyday lives.
“We want to show our support of that philosophy and be more environmentally and ecologically aware,” Savarese said.
Santa Monica artist Tony Berlant works exclusively in tin, which he collects from colorful printed tin signs and cans.
“He does it in the same way that a mosaic is done by planning out the image he wants to create and finding the colors,” Savarese said. “He cuts out the little pieces of tin, so it’s almost like a puzzle.”
Berlant’s labor-intensive designs often measure 12-by-14 inches, but he also designs 3-D cubes, houses and floral pieces.
San Francisco-based artist Liz Mamorsky not only paints in oils and draws in pastels and colored pencils, she also uses recycled wood and metal pieces to design anthropomorphic and zoomorphic sculptures, including furniture, whimsical robots, masks and some Judaica. View Mamorsky’s work at www.lizland.com.
Marilyn Mitchell of Encinitas creates recycled images inspired by newsprint, circulars and magazines.
“The point of her work is that so much of society is temporal, whether it’s an image or material, so she’ll take a newspaper article, or an ad or a circular and do a painting of it in watercolors, oils and ink,” said D. Candis Paule, gallery administrator.
“When I first saw her pieces, I thought she had used the newspapers themselves, but when I got closer, I realized that she re-created the images totally by hand,” Savarese said.
Much of Mitchell’s work has a personal edge to it although she has done some political statements. View Mitchell’s work at www.marilynmitchell.net.
“For a birthday piece, she’ll use the newspaper from that date to see what was happening, and then she customizes it with particular things about the person she is honoring,” Savarese said.
East Coast artist Jody Silver gives old and found objects new life by fashioning them into whimsical three-dimensional wall hangings and freestanding figurative pieces depicting people and animals. Silver uses everything from a shoe tree to a chair back to create her designs.
“She uses all kinds of scrap to create the hair, the body parts and the limbs,” Savarese said. “She even used a circuit board to depict hair.”
The exhibit is free and all art is for sale. All proceeds benefit the nonprofit Gotthelf Art Gallery, which is devoted to expanding and enriching cultural life in San Diego by presenting Jewish artistic expressions, encouraging the preservation of Jewish culture and heritage and nurturing new creativity in the arts.
View Silver’s work at
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‘Reclaim, Rework, Recreate’
- Runs through Feb. 25
- Gotthelf Art Gallery
- 4126 Executive Drive, La Jolla
- (858) 362-1164
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