The Artists

Click the window to close

WARREN CHANG: NARRATIVE PAINTINGS
In his first retrospective, Warren Chang shares the largest collection of his paintings ever exhibited, many on loan from private collections. Born and bred in Monterey, Warren Chang graduated from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, where he earned a B.F.A. in illustration with honors. He thrived for two decades as an award-winning illustrator in both California and New York, when he transitioned to a career as a fine artist.

His work can be considered in two main categories: biographical interiors and fieldworkers. His interest in interiors reaches back to 16th century artist Johannes Vermeer, and include self-portraits, family, friends and students in the environments of his studio, classroom and home. His intent is to create mood and emotion through his manipulation of light and use of close value relationships and subdued color.

His paintings of fieldworkers from the Monterey County area harkens back to such forerunners as Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Jean-Francois Millet, Winslow Homer, Eastman Johnson and Thomas Hart Benton. Chang’s depiction of fieldworkers are unsentimental, unidealized, yet at the same time celebrate the human spirit. Chang admits being inspired and influenced by the novels of John Steinbeck; books he read in his youth as well as the general ambience of growing up in Monterey.

Chang’s art is currently on exhibition at The World Art Museum in Beijing, and The Butler Institute will feature a solo exhibition of his in 2014. A book signing will take place in May to celebrate Warren’s book Narrative Paintings which covers this exhibition and more, plus commentary written about his work and its inspirational origins.

NAMGUI CHANG: SCENES OF OLD MONTEREY
Born in Seoul, Korea, Mr. Chang immigrated to the United States in 1949 to study at UC Berkeley, eventually earning a PHD in Linguistics. Separated from his wife and family during the outbreak of the Korean War, he eventually was able to bring his family successfully over to America, settling in Monterey, California in 1952 where he taught and wrote text books for the Korean Language Department of the Defense Language Institute for over 35 years before his retirement in 1990.

Chang is the author of two Korean language books and has just completed a book on the philosophy of Confucius and has found time throughout the years to paint scenes of his native Korea and his adopted home of Monterey dating back to the early 1960’s. He has raised 4 children with his wife Kim and his youngest son, Warren, credits his father for much of the philosophical spirit of his artwork.

REINVENTIONS: RECENT PAINTINGS BY ED SMILEY
Ed Smiley’s current work incorporates acrylic transfer of xerography, newspapers, maps, digitally modified images, digital printing, drawings, pastels, and other objects combined in various ways with acrylic mediums and paints-- endeavoring to reinvent for himself what it means to paint.

Drawn to the poetic, the elusive, the non-sequitur, attracted to things that can't easily be put into words, he says, “Abstraction is not only a means of removing things, it is also a means of adding them; it is a way of overloading, of creating multiple layers of meaning and implication.”

GOING COASTAL, LEELA MARCUM
“Going Coastal” is a collection of watercolors and acrylics inspired by gardens and the scenery of the local coast. “No one can actually capture the beauty of nature, but as artists we try to capture an expression or mood,” explains Marcum, “I grew up in the mountains of New Mexico and spent many summers on the coast of Maine. Here on the Monterey coast the mountains and the ocean come together. It’s easy to be “crazy” about this place. Since moving here, I can truly say ‘I’ve gone Coastal!’”

While Marcum has spent most of her adult life working as an elementary school teacher, this past decade has seen an awakening of her artistic soul. She began painting at a young age yet, has just recently made this talent her primary focus. “I doubt that I’ll ever settle into a single mode of expression in painting. I am compelled to explore. I think of my work as semi-abstract realism.”

Click the window to close