ART

Art exhibit featuring paintings and mixed media by Bay Area artists Alysanne McGaffey and Marian Yap. A painter and printmaker, Alysanne McGaffey came to the Bay Area in the 1950's from the University of Washington with an exhibition record in sculpture to enter the San Francisco Art Institute on scholarship. Under the tutelage of Wally Hedrick she studied with Jay DeFeo, Bill Brown, Joan Brown, Manuel Neri, Ivan Magdrikoff, Walt Kuhlman and Nathan Olivera among others in the exciting years of the Bay Area Figurative Movement and the Funk era centered around the school and San Francisco's North Beach. In the 70's she finished a formal Bachelor of Fine Arts at the College of Notre Dame, Belmont under artist/historian Dr. David Ramsey. Alysanne then completed a Masters of Fine Arts in Painting at Lone Mountain College (now USF) in San Francisco, focusing on oil and watercolor. Her original reputation was created as a figurative oil painter, in later years watercolor became her dominant expressive mode, frequently addressing landscape, seascape and the inner spiritual life.

Marian Yap moved to California in the early sixties from New York City where she had her early training. She attended the High School of Art and Design, and the Art Students League. In California, she was introduced to the beauty and creativity of pastels by Jackie DiCello, noted Pacifica artist and teacher. Marian came to love the immediacy and vibrant colors of pastels – the immediacy of drawing and the colors of the oil pigments. She finds that there is also a forgiving nature with the medium and this seems to encourage experimentation. Whether she is doing an abstract, a figurative image or a landscape, Marian is always amazed at the versatility of pastels, the lasting brilliance of the colors and the variation of possible techniques and tools.