To a certain degree we are all products of our environment. Any artist's work is influenced by their circumstances and surroundings to some degree. Perhaps this is why Santa Barbara has been known for the compelling landscape paintings produced by the artists here for the past three decades. However, the overabundance of realist painters has obscured the presence of the dedicated non-objective abstract painters in our midst. Corridan Gallery is proud to present the work of three top Santa Barbara artists who have held to the traditions of pure abstract painting. Karin Aggeler, Peggy Ferris and Francis Scorzelli have taken cues from the Abstract Modernist art of the mid 20th Century and have expanded the idiom adding the experiences and visual themes they developed during the past three decades.
One hundred years ago the early abstract artist, Robert Delaunay, determined that the essential subject matter of art was not out there in the world, but inside the artist's mind. For these three artists, the quality of life and beauty of the natural surroundings positively affect their state of consciousness and therefore their artistic output. Their work is sophisticated and powerful, yet more accessible and livable than much of the abstract work of recent decades. They have been able to reach conclusions that eluded the famous Action Painters and Abstract Expressionists of the 1950's, perhaps because of the hectic, tumultuous and brief lives those earlier artists lived.