Title: “Club Macchia” Art Exhibit Dates: Oct 1 – Oct 31st, 2012
Where: Brownsville Art Center , 255 N. Main Street, Brownsville, OR
Host Organization: Brownsville Art Association

Coburg Hills by Jerry Ross, 2012

Description of event:

Club Macchia is a plein air painting group based in Lane County. Jerry Ross, who teaches workshops for the group, promotes a style called “American Verismo” based on 19th Century Italian methods. Club Macchia members work in a contemporary approach to this style and endeavior to deepen their understanding through daily painting sessions and ongoing exhibits.

Other Club Macchia artists in this exhibit are Victoria Biedron, Sally Schwader, Patty McNutt, John Bennington (sculptor) and Tim Kendall. Note that the Tuscan painters that originated the verismo style during the 1860s met at "Club Michelangelo" in Florence, Italy and were called the I Macchiaioli. Each Club Macchia artist in this exhibit will show from 3 to 5 pieces.

Works in the exhibit are mostly "macchia" (spot or stain) paintings. The sketch-like quality of the work requires that each artist stop working on the painting at precisely the right moment, so as not to obliterate or erase the original impressionistic (macchia) design.

Some work will, as a consequence of this, be more or less towards the finished end of the process and others will be anywhere else on the same spectrum . Regardless, this exhibit will highlight recent summer 2012 work by the artists of "Club Macchia."

"Macchia" is an Italian word for "spot" or "stain" but essentially it means a quick oil sketch capturing in a few strokes the basic and accurate structure as well as impact of some scene or object. This is made possible by limiting the sketch to at most 4-values and the artist's palette to a limited number of colors organized into a color pool.

The macchia paintings will have a strong (some say "extreme") chiaroscuro (light vs dark) which makes for a bold contrast between the background and the foreground. The pictoral space is reduced to at most seven basic shapes. There is an attention to the paintings surface and texture. Areas are often scraped out with a razor knife and evidence of these changes or corrections (pentimenti) are left showing to leave evidence of the artist's process.

Often macchia sketches are more interesting than a finished work. They retain strong abstract qualities and when viewed close up reveal vigorous descriptive brushstrokes which are left on the surface and not blended in. The plural of macchia is macchie (pronounced mock-ee-ay). Although landscapes are the most common, macchie can represent figures, portraits, and other subject matter.

Hours: The hours at the Art Center are Tuesday eves 6:30 - 9 pm, Thursdays and Saturdays, 10 - 5 pm. Reception: Saturday, October 13, 2 - 4 pm.

Contacts: Alice J. Tetamore aliceart@centurytel.net 541 466-5782

The Brownsville Art Center: (541) 466-5782 aliceart@centurytel.net
Club Macchia: Victoria Biedron : 541-915-6424 awake.art11@gmail.com