Manna Gallery is pleased to present “Dissolve/Evolve”, featuring recent work by Berkeley artist Ellen Zucker. The exhibition opens Friday, June 22 and continues to July 28. A reception for Ellen takes place on Saturday, June 23, frpm 2 to 4 pm. Ellen will be present to greet gallery visitors and discuss the development of this latest body of work. 473 25th St., Oakland. Hours: 12 -5 pm Fridays, Saturdays, First Fridays 5-9-pm. www.mannagallery.com, 510-536-7559.
Ellen’s paintings, although abstract in nature, nevertheless contain a slowly evolving figure, emerging from a softly colored ground which sometimes takes on shapes implying context or, in other works, the ground remains elusive and ambiguous.
Ellen says, “I often feel a mysterious human figure, usually a woman, is slumbering in the canvas, emerging, receding, on a journey to an unknowable destination, searching for home, staring out a window. Is she coming or going? Hard to say. Only that she’s en route to a place she needs to go. I must find her.
“I am drawn to mystery, to the unknowable, to the place before words. Cause and effect don’t answer my questions. I cannot fathom birth, death, breathing, love, forever, sunshine, an ocean, an elm tree, a woman crying in pain, a child shrieking with glee.
“…Without knowing what or why, I am engaged for hours on end. No reason why I paint…Just the mysterious pull to have brush, rag, stick, knife dipped in color, to say no to one mark and yes to another. On a bad day, I can’t tolerate not knowing what I’m doing; on a good day that mysterious uncertainty seems like life itself.”
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