ART TALKS
A conversation with Gustavo Oviedo, Jesus Rojas, and Johan Wahlström
MINDFIELDS OF COLOR
SUMMER EXHIBITION
The current exhibit that has sparked our two-part ART TALK this summer has given rise to our wanting to share with you, the artists behind the art work.
Art work is a constant source of inspiration for both artist and viewer. I have the honor of stewarding the works of the many amazing artists who are part of OMSA Gallery, and their work elevates my life daily, transforming these halls into hallowed spaces for me.
The work itself is the key. Without it, we would only have concepts, ideas, or notions—valid in their own right—but our senses yearn for answers and resolutions to questions that we cannot even formulate in words.
Art has always reflected our shared humanity, transcending language, beyond the verb, the pronouns… In my view, much of this power resides in color.
At its core, color is a language—a way for artists to communicate feelings, create atmospheres, and tell stories without words.
ART TALKS
SATURDAY, 09.07.2024
4PM - 6PM
The choices artists make with hues, tints, shades, and tones—nuances that deeply resonate with our sensory experience—define how we perceive all other aspects of the work.
Yet, it is not solely up to the artist nor even the viewer to understand these definitions. For color may just be a bridge between the external world and the internal experience—a connection between the seen and the unseen, the physical and the emotional, the individual and the universal.
Indeed, while the Word may have been in the beginning, I am certain that before the Word, there was color, undefined and pure.
Join us Saturday September 7, 2024 from 4pm to 6pm for an afternoon and an attempt to give words to colors in a conversation with Johan Wahlström, Jesus Rojas and Gustavo Oviedo.
See you there,
Daniella Sforza
Curating Director of Exhibitions
Johan Wahlström
#116
2023
Urethane, color pigments on canvas
54″ x 31″
Jesus Rojas
Garden Under an Early Moon
2024
Acrylic on canvas
50″ x 50″
Gustavo Oviedo
Binary Cloud
2021
Wood, spray paint, & acrylic paint
43″ x 30″ x 7″
MINDFIELDS OF COLOR
Selected works by 4 chromatic artists
Janet Siegel Rogers
Jesus Rojas
Johan Wahlström
Gustavo Oviedo
Part II of OMSA ART TALKS.
Join me in a conversation with the artists in the current summer exhibition.
In July we were overjoyed to interview Janet Siegel Rogers, now meet the rest of the crew:
Jesus Rojas, Johan Wahlström, and Gustavo Oviedo
in an afternoon of colorful conversation at OMSA Gallery.
Saturday, September 7, 2024 at 4pm – 6pm
Johan’s paintings are radical constructs that essentially deconstruct as they captivate our senses using nature’s tools. In this series he most vibrantly, offers a liberating experience through an enchanting perceptual play of now light, now brilliant wavelengths of hues, measured before us in 2D.
His work most definitely retains that Swedish cultural nuance of man’s right to nature (Allemansrätten), to wander unimpeded and to commune with all that calls us to in the natural world. His work calls us to having no boundaries or definitions other than pure light and color.
Jesus has always been attracted to light, clarity and clean, vibrant colors. This could be due to the influence of his prior work as an illustrator. This also could explain the playfulness of his work, even when touching on such issues as humanism, erotism, spirituality and the concept of eternal duality.
This concept greatly influences his work: viewing the Universe as the philosophical core that informs his narratives. That said, his pieces are about the joy of life, created with a love for it and for light and color.
Gustavo’s artistry essentially transcends traditional boundaries, inviting us into a realm where imagination, nature, and human perception converge to celebrate the beauty and complexity of life beneath the ocean’s surface in all its vibrant chromatic spectrum.
His work resonates with a frequency that feels both familiar and otherworldly, pushing the boundaries of how we define color and its role in our visual and emotional world. Whether in 2D or 3D there is a clear movement and dance that floats like the primal flotsam and jetsam of our existence.
“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way —things I had no words for.”
– Georgia O’Keefe