Now it’s the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center’s turn to showcase paster’s oil paintings throughout the month of June, with a wine reception on June 2 (6–8pm) as part of the Mill Valley Arts Commission‘s First Tuesday Artwalk.
The monthly celebration of local art includes a host of venues, including the O’Hanlon Center for the Arts, Seager Gray Gallery, the Mill Valley Public Library, Zener Schon Contemporary Art, Gelateria Noci, Julie Tuton Boutique, Terrestra, the Depot Bookstore & Café, City Hall, Famous4 and the Mill Valley Community Center, Seager Gray Gallery and the Throckmorton Theatre. Receptions at each venue are Tuesday from 6–8pm. First Tuesday Artwalk Guide with venues and a map.
Paster has dubbed her exhibit “Some Things We Know,” hoping to convey a state of possibility, “where everything in the atmosphere pulsates with life, on the verge of movement and change,” she says. “My paintings are not about what is seen, they are about the forces of energy that surround us. How one motion affects the next is a continuing source of fascination for me.”
“I’ve been exploring abstraction more and more over the years, but–even with my representational pieces–I am focusing on the vibration of matter and how our world exists right on the edge of chaos, in almost constant flux,” she adds. “I’m definitely inspired by the water and landscape that surrounds me in Marin County. That’s why retaining a sense of gestural animation in my work is important to me. Paster’s studio is in the historic ICB in Sausalito. She graduated as a painter from Brandeis University in 1976 and has been painting since the age of 13, “after falling in love, as a toddler, with the smell of turpentine in my grandfather’s basement studio in the Bronx,” she says.
Paster represented locally by Mill Valley-based Stephanie Breitbard Fine Arts, which is opening a gallery on Montgomery Street this summer and is known for its roster of contemporary, affordable artists.
The 411: Sharon Paster is exhibiting “Some Things We Know” at the Mill Valley Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center, 85 Throckmorton Avenue, throughout June. The First Tuesday Artwalk receptions are Tuesday, June 2, 6–8pm. First Tuesday Artwalk Guide with venues and a map.