Birds, Trolls & Pachyderms
Sundry Styles Showing at Contreras
Creative magic happens in the back room of Contreras Gallery.
In a space that can’t be any more than six feet wide and twelve feet long, Neda and E. Michael Contreras work. Neda paints vibrantly colored still life oils on canvas. Mr. Contreras, a silversmith, fashions and repairs jewelry; he is also a painter and additionally produces pen and ink pieces.
For the Tucson natives, who met and married in the mid-70s, art is their lives. In addition to running the gallery, Neda curates the shows and they both hang the exhibits. Hanging the work proportionally with an aesthetic flow in a small space is not an easy task, but the artists have demonstrated a critical eye for layout within the two rooms’ confines.
The exhibits rotate monthly, Neda explains, “The artists come to us. We’ve been involved in the arts community for years and we were both members of Raices Taller (a local non-profit arts collective).”
The couple opened Contreras Gallery and Jewelry in 2008. “We were looking downtown, and noticed this place was vacant,” Mr. Contreras recalls. “It fits our needs; it’s just us two here.”
The gallery is a bright and cozy nook with the requisite high ceilings in the Historic Arts Warehouse District, a Tucson treasure that is easily discoverable at its 110 E. 6th St. locale during First Saturday Art Walks.
This month, Contreras Gallery and Jewelry hosts the “3 Sum In 2-Son” exhibit with pieces by the gallery owners and Gary Aagaard. It showcases Neda’s bird series, paintings that are years in the making, along with work by E. Michael and Aagaard’s sociopolitical art.
Neda’s bird series is intriguing; canvases saturated with color bisected by deep blue backgrounds and foregrounds that pop with vivid plants, vegetables and, of course, the winged ones. Most are oriented horizontally but one, “The Red Balloon,” is a vertical painting with a fantastical grouping of subjects and critters that makes you wonder what they are up to. She looks at it and remarks, “It’s like a dream or something.”
In stark contrast to her work, E. Michael’s “The Troll Bridge” is a haunting, dark, wintery and intricate (250 hours worth!) pen and ink depiction of the Billy Goats Gruff tale. Aagaard’s art rounds out the show. His “March of the Lunatic” will be on display; a delightfully searing commentary on radical Republicans tearing apart Washington D.C. Liberals will love the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man/Newt Gingrich thundering behind a stampeding herd of pachyderms with a macabre sneer on his horribly evil face. It’s good stuff.
“3 Sum In 2-Son” opens on March 2, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., during First Saturday Art Walks. The show, at 110 E. 6th St., continues through March 30. Find more details at ContrerasHouseFineArt.com or by calling 398-6557.
Category: Arts, DOWNTOWN / UNIVERSITY / 4TH AVE
