April, 2008 Exhibit:

From the Ground Up
New mixed media work by Piety Choi and Jeff Waring

Piety Choi: interior landscapes of the sacred and ordinary
Jeff Waring: irreverent reverence for debris and detritus

April 4 - 27, 2008
Reception: Fri, Apr 4, 5 – 9 pm

Hours: Thu 12 - 4 pm, Fri 3 - 7 pm, Sat & Sun 12 - 5 pm

Images from the Show
Photos from the Reception
Jeff Waring's Flickr Set for this show

From the Ground Up references the creative impulse to build from scratch, while implying both humility and ascent. Piety Choi and Jeff Waring are together in their humble and spiritual musing on Nature, and share a chthonic and intuitive approach to creating visual art.

Choi, a Korean-born American artist and graduate of PAFA, brings an Eastern influence to her Western education, painting gritty and sublime vistas and abstractions. As a reflection on paradox, she is moved "To See Movements in Stillness, Purpose in Chaos, Hope in Hopelessness, and Divinity in the Ordinary". Her art is meditative and embodies a free spirit in search of meaning without answers.

Waring, currently serving as director of Highwire Artists Co-op, serves up a harvest of layered detritus mixed with tar, house paint, wax and dyes. He incorporates time, rain, and wind, exposing his art to the elements and responding to what Nature offers. Cardboard and canvas, soaked in paint and seasoned with exposure, are cultivated like grapes for future intoxication.

Inquiry and uncertainty are partnered in this exhibit, giving birth to discovery and deeper questions. Can we be motivated by compassion toward ecology and symbiosis rather than economy and control? Our religion of materialism has a grip on the world, and our urban and suburban lives lack quiet contemplation. As a counterpoint, From the Ground Up is an invitation to look and think; to consider inner needs, the needs of our world, and our place within.