| | Published September 4th, 2019
| Brilliant show at the Moraga Art Gallery
| | | By Sophie Braccini |  | | Work by Angelica Samame Photo provided |
The Moraga Art Gallery ends the summer season with a dynamic show featuring two artists whose joie de vivre, imagination and brilliant colors evoke this season of bounty and plenitude. The show is called "Pattern Parade," featuring Lafayette's Angelica Samame and guest artist Irene Needoba from Orinda. The show's end date cannot be ascertained since the shopping center's management has informed the artist collective that a more lucrative tenant might soon take their place.
Samane is a painter of Peruvian origin who brings to the canvas the exuberance and elegance of the women of her Latin country. She explains that her creative process begins as she starts applying color, and that shapes appear as the painting happens, rather than as the result of previous planning. It is indeed part of Samame's inner world that is given to the viewers - images of lightness and happiness, women captured in their daily lives, tending to mundane but happy tasks, surrounded by beauty and joy. The artist explains that her goal is to make people happy.
Samane style is highly decorative. She paints with a classic solid technique and her stylized portraits are reminiscent of various end of 19th to beginning of the 20th century artists.
Guest artist Needoba's acrylic paintings are quite different but also infused with the same love of warm and bright colors. They bring an entirely whimsical universe to the canvas. The artist creates a whole imaginary world, with birds, mountains, faces, water and endless elements to be discovered by viewers. In a quote for the gallery, Needoda said that she accepted the world as a mysterious, confusing place with no straight answer. Her world may be mysterious, but it is also very dynamic and powerfully alive - dreamy and exploding at the same time.
If you have missed the previous show at the gallery, there is still some of the delicate photographic work by Lucy Beck on display. The artist creates photographic images of flowers on Japanese Washi paper that produce images midway between photo and painting, and that beautifully reveal the intricate fragility of the flowers, as a metaphor for our natural world. The work of several other resident artists and guests are also being shown.
"Pattern Parade" will be on display at the Moraga Art Gallery, 522 Center St, Moraga, through Oct. 20, unless the tenants are asked to leave sooner. The owner of that part of the shopping center has rented the current space to the artists for years at a reduced rate. When the artist collective was informed that a new renter was interested in renting the space at market price it was also offered a new space, tucked in the corner in the vicinity of Tangelo Frozen Yogurt. The gallery is currently open Wednesday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. For more information, visit www.moragaartgallery.com |
 | | Work by Lucy Beck Photo Sophie Braccini |  | | Work by Angelica Samame Photo Sophie Braccini | | | | | | | | | |
Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA