March 23 – April 28, 2024
Gallery Route One presents Swallowing Sky, an exhibit of mixed media works by Bay Area artist Ellen Vogel. Vogel is interested in the tactile, the physical, and the impermanent nature of things; contrasted with the available immensity of our consciousness. Cracks, openings, textures, and veiling become the abstract language she explores this experience with.
The artist explains, “Perception is turned inward; my process is both a physical and intuitive exploration of what lies just below the surface of everyday life.”
In the current body of work, newspaper is used as a means to integrate heartbreaking stories read globally. As in the Buddhist practice Tonglen, the artist’s intention is to take in thestory, let it sit, and send back a deep breath or a moment of light. Vogel created sets of prayer beads made from stories she’s collected as an attempt to recall the sacred in all humans.
Artist Bio
Ellen Vogel is a New York transplant, living in California for over three decades now. She is a graduate of John F. Kennedy’s MFA in Arts and Consciousness Program, holds a certificate from the NY Studio School, as well as having studied at California College of the Arts. She has a deep connection to nature, philosophy, and the wonder of being in a body, in this time and place. Her art gives her a physical means to communicate with the multi-level experiences of being conscious. While working as a studio artist, she taught art in several places including the Metropolitan Museum, Cerro Coso Community College, and finally 25 years in Middle School in the Bay Area. Her objective as an instructor has been to introduce her fervent belief in the innate, unique gift of creativity we all have as humans.
She has had pieces shown at Sanchez Art Center, Falkirk, San Jose Museum of Contemporary Art, Grounds for Sculpture, SOMARTS, Richmond Art Center, Oakland Museum, Bolinas Museum, and is currently an Artist Member of Gallery Route One in Point Reyes Station.
