ArtZone 461 Gallery is pleased to announce a two-person show for Gage Opdenbrouw and Ryan M. Reynolds.   Both men share a painting compulsion; they are driven to achieve results that go beyond the static image.  While portraying ordinary experiences, the artist becomes witness to and chronicler of life, time, and mortality.  The artists communicate these experiences using paint as their written language.

They share many similar concerns.  One of the most compelling problems is how to simplify such a complicated view into something digestible?  How to synthesize the rhythms of buildings and trees; landscapes or interiors; color, light and shadow, into a satisfying abstract rhythm, without losing the sense of space?  Navigating differences between paint and illusion and surface and depth is important in the work and provides insight to the manner these questions are answered or, at least, explored.

Reynolds and Opdenbrouw seek to convey essential qualities of movement, psychological insight, spontaneity and the passage of time.  These are accomplished through many cycles of destroying and rebuilding the image.  Their work explores the tension between the static aspect of painting and its dynamic subjects, finding a balance between abstraction and representation.

Gage Opdenbrouw has shown works in several Bay Area galleries since receiving his BFA in 2001, from the Academy of Art University, as well as MPG Contemporary in Boston and juried shows nationwide.  In addition to his studio work, he also teaches painting and drawing.  He exhibited several of his "Dia de los muertos" paintings in fall 2009 at the Bakersfield Museum.  Opdenbrouw and Reynolds were both in a recent landscape show at the deSaisset Museum that ended in January 2011. 

Ryan Reynolds received his M.F.A. in Art Practice in 2003 from U.C. Berkeley.  Currently he is a Lecturer at Santa Clara University where he has taught since 2005.  He has had four solo shows in four years in Bay Area Galleries and in Sacramento, where he is represented by B. Sakata Garo Gallery.