PRESS RELEASE
Beth Hammack and Brooks Tower Featured
In May at JRB Art at The Elms
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. -- The May exhibit at JRB Art at The Elms will feature exhibits of Beth Hammack, an Oklahoma painter, and Brooks Tower, an internationally recognized mosaic artist. Both exhibits will open on Friday, May 3rd with an opening reception from 6:00 to 10:00 p.m. during The Paseo Arts District’s monthly First Friday Gallery Walk. The exhibit can be seen during the Paseo Arts Festival Memorial Day Weekend and will close on May 28th.
Beth Hammack, a celebrated Oklahoma City artist, has work is in several important private and corporate collections. For this exhibit of abstract paintings, she has combined a loose graphite drawing style with a layered and sometimes geometric application of color. Beth graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics. She has also studied at the Chicago Art Institute and the London City School of Arts. Following graduation, Beth spent her early career as an interior designer and in the 1980’s was the founder and principal designer of a national sterling jewelry line named ZAGAL. She credits her interior design experience as giving her the ability to visualize how her work will relate to and enhance the physical environment in which it is placed. Believing that if a painting is abstract it has no directional orientation, all of Hammack’s paintings can be hung both vertically and horizontally.
For the past few years, Brooks Tower has been perfecting a technique and style in the ancient art of mosaics. Using a standard tile wet saw, he cuts and shapes each piece of tile, stone, glass, marble, or semi-precious mineral to create works of much greater precision than is usually attainable in traditional mosaics. Grout lines help to illustrate the story of the piece, becoming as much a part of the work’s artistry as the tile itself. In effect, he draws with the saw, but with this difference; each line is executed twice. Both sides of the line must be cut. As frames and canvasses for his work, Tower uses doors, stumps, windows, treadle sewing machines, end and coffee tables. Kitchen cabinet doors provide frames for his art for the wall.
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JRB Art at The Elms presents a diverse roster of emerging, established, and internationally exhibited artists who create in a wide range of media, including paintings, drawings, sculpture, ceramics, glass, fine crafts, functional objects, fiber art and photographs. This 8,000 square foot, award-winning gallery in Oklahoma City’s Paseo Arts District changes its exhibits monthly in a gracious environment that fosters a dialogue between the arts and the larger community while providing quality art for first time buyers as well as individual, corporate and museum collections.
JRB Art at The Elms, the former home of Nan Sheets which was built in 1920, is located at 2810 North Walker and is open Monday through Saturday, 10-6, and Sunday 1-5.
Phone: (405) 528-6336 Website: www.jrbartgallery.com
Email: info@jrbartgallery.com