The artists of Flux Gallery

C.J. Shane: Shane is a native Texan who has lived in Arizona many years. The prairie and the big sky where she grew up are fundamental influences in her art. She paints primarily abstracted landscapes of sky and earth, with the Sonoran Desert a constant source of inspiration. Texture and color are the most important elements of her oil paintings. Her favorite artists are Helen Frankenthaler, Rufino Tamayo, Gao Xingjian, and those Chinese landscape painters from the Ming and Qing dynasties. Shane hopes to convey to the viewer the eternal essence of the natural world in her art. In addition to her oil paintings, Shane creates artists’ books, monotypes, lino- and woodcut prints, and smoke-fired earthenware pottery. She exhibits locally and nationally, and her artwork is found in private and institutional collections. Shane is also a writer and the author of several books.

Dragana Skrepnik: Dragana was born and raised in the former Yugoslavia, where she earned a degree in economics and business. In 1989, she moved to New Orleans with her family and achieved her lifelong dream of becoming an artist. In 2001, she came to Tucson, and abstract painting became her passion, allowing her to explore and express her feelings and dreams through vivid colors on large canvases that depict semi-abstract landscapes. She works in oil media, with warm, bold colors and rich texture, to bring energy and optimism to life. A technique she has been exploring in the last few years is using resin over oil; this brings more depth and vibrancy, and a new dimension to her art. Dragana’s work can be seen at galleries, art shows, or her studio; through private collectors, or on her web site.

Lee Roy Beach: Throughout his forty years as a research psychologist, Lee studied, among other things, the neurological and experiential aspects of visual perception: how the mind creates visual representations of environmental events from partial and unreliable sense data. He found that this act of creation makes the representation both meaningful and compelling to the observer. As a result, he strives to avoid dictating the observer’s experience, providing only enough visual data for the observer to create his or her own artistic experience, thereby inviting participation in the creation of the work itself. The goal is for the observer to have an artistic experience that is both intellectually and emotionally stimulating and that is unique to him or her. He has been painting since the late 1950s but began his art career in the mid-1990s and has exhibited work in numerous shows and galleries.

 
 Lynne Yamaguchi: At the end of 2002, acting on a gut feeling, Lynne Yamaguchi quit her career as an editor and book designer to become a woodturner—giving notice at her job before she even knew how to turn. Now an internationally known turner, Lynne uses traditional lathe techniques to create sculptural vessels that are deeply informed by her Japanese heritage. In 2007, she was one of four woodturning fellows selected for the International Turning Exchange, an annual eight-week residency sponsored by the Wood Turning Center (now the Center for Art in Wood) in Philadelphia. She has demonstrated and taught woodturning techniques across the country and sells her work through galleries and art shows and her web site. Her work has been featured in Phoenix Home and Garden, Tucson Home magazine, the Arizona Daily Star, and Woodturning Design, as well as other publications.

Mary Vaneecke: Mary is an artist, author, and teacher whose work has been exhibited internationally and at many local, regional, and national shows. Her work has won numerous awards and been featured in many national publications. Mary explores a myriad of surface design techniques on fabric: painting, discharging, decorative stitching, embellishing, foil, printing, and image transfer. Most of her work is then layered and stitched. These final stitches add durability and critical design elements—texture and dimension—to a piece; they are integral to her work. Mary’s overarching goal is to meet the challenge put to her once by a friend: Show me something I haven’t seen before. Her current work (particularly the Samaras and Circlesss series) explores the tension between the human need to make order out of chaos—and the ultimate futility of that endeavor. The illusion of transparency and the S curve composition are recurring themes.

 
 
Peter Eisner: Peter is originally from Chicago but moved to Arizona in 1967. In addition to his art, he loves the West and the outdoors—the mountains, the desert, and the rivers. He splits his time between Arizona and Colorado and enjoys hiking, biking, and whitewater kayaking. He is a physical person, so working with steel is a natural extension of who he is. The sculpture he creates is a way to actualize his relationship with the physical world. He enjoys working with different forms and finishes, including natural rust, patinas, paint, and powder coating. He creates both large and tabletop free-standing pieces as well as wall sculptures.
 
 
 

Sheryl Holland: Sheryl specializes in abstract acrylic paintings of intense color, large shapes and vibrant movement, often with a deep sense of space. After teaching art and humanities in Michigan for fifteen years, she moved to Arizona, where the warm colors of the Southwest have infused her art with new passion and imagination. Painting abstractly invites Sheryl to create spontaneously in the moment. She moves colors freely across the canvas until lines and shapes begin to appear and images emerge. The process is unpredictable, a constant painting in, painting out, layering, starting again. It is complete when she steps back and feels that sense of "Yes!" Viewers complete the creative process when they engage the image and let it speak to them. Sheryl's work hangs in many private collections and is frequently exhibited in area shows.