OPENING RECEPTION: 1st THURSDAY, JULY 7th | FROM 5-8pm
SANTA BARBARA - Sullivan Goss - An American Gallery is excited to announce a solo exhibition for Mary-Austin Klein. Klein has shown in galleries throughout Southern California for many years, and has been included in assorted group shows with us over the years. This will be the first solo show for the artist at Sullivan Goss.
Airlight showcases Klein’s skilled renderings of the storied California light in some of her most traveled places. From Death Valley to the Pacific Ocean, she captures impressive vistas in high detail. Keeping her canvases at a small scale, they still emulate long horizons and high skies.
Klein’s direct representation of these places evokes silence for the most part. If a figure appears, they are not the dominant subject. It is the landscape and the rustle of wind in the palm trees, the humming silence of a desert plain at twilight, the slap of waves against a SUP board, or the shush of bike tires on the sand at low tide, that are the true stars of the scenes. Klein seeks out what matters in these paintings: quiet scenes in a noisy world. Klein, who lives in Echo Park, spent an increasing amount of time in Santa Barbara over the past few years, seeing with fresh eyes the best of what the town has to offer. Her work captures in astonishing detail the zone between the mountains and the ocean with its deep blue sky and magical light.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Born in San Bernardino and raised on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, Mary-Austin found inspiration in the California landscape at an early age. The Otis Art Institute took her inland to Los Angeles to the Echo Park district in Los Angeles where she has been a resident for 33 years.
After purchasing a Mojave Desert cabin in 2001, Klein returned to painting landscape. Her collectors, including the American artist Wayne Thiebaud, appreciate her small-scaled and highly detailed paintings. She takes numerous trips throughout the year for artistic inspiration and returns to her studio to produce new works.
Mary-Austin Klein’s work has been exhibited at the Riverside Museum of Art, Oceanside Museum of Art, Bakersfield Museum of Art, and Santa Paula Art Museum. Country-Alt band I See Hawks in L.A. feature a song Mary-Austin Sky on their 2012 CD, A New Kind of Lonely. She is featured in artist Kim Stringfellow's book Jackrabbit Homestead, and The Guide to the Wild Mojave publication sponsored by the California Wilderness Coalition.
