Abstract Artist Panel
Sunday, March 9, 2025; 2 - 4pm
Sliding Scale: $10/$15/$20 - RSVP to confirm your seat
(No one will be turned away for lack of funds)
Join us for an engaging discussion moderated by Cynthi Stefenoni with local abstract artists as they explore the creative processes, inspirations, and philosophies behind their work. This panel will delve into the complexities of abstract art, from the use of color and form to the ways in which abstraction communicates emotion and meaning.
Gain insight into how these artists push the boundaries of traditional representation and embrace the freedom of non-representational expression. Whether you're a seasoned art lover or a curious newcomer, this panel promises an enlightening conversation about the power of abstract art.
Panelists
Julia Nelson-Gal‘s work explores concepts around time, deterioration and human complexity, while observing the changing understanding of our world. Her abstract world work often includes repurposed materials, especially books, film, magazines and tools. In 2022, she built a large scale building at Burning Man covered in some 360 linear feet of abstract collage work made from 3000 repurpose books. Nelson-Gal received a MA and BA in Art History and Museum Studies at the University of Michigan and worked in Contemporary Art and Photography Departments at the Detroit Institute of Arts, The Art Institute of Chicago and SFMOMA. She has taught graduate Mixed Media Photography classes at the Academy of Art.
Gordon Studer’s earthy, confident abstracts are rooted in his discipline as an award-winning commercial illustrator, lending his work a strong, graphic cadence. The result speaks to liminal experience, interstitial time, and dreamscapes in deliberate forms in black atop a palette of ochre, sky blue, and crushed clays. Having studied fine art at Penn State, he went on to teach at the California College of the Arts, and enjoyed a 25 year career telling visual stories for Fortune 500 corporate clients and major media outlets. His background is evident as he applies an intentionality to his paintings, delivering on a specific narrative, inviting the viewer to a purposeful encounter. Based in Sausalito, California, he once experienced a bout of complete amnesia, allowing him to refresh his perception of the natural world and question concepts such as imagination, dream, and recollection.
Sige Weisman is an abstract artist, dancer, psychotherapist, mother and community tender. She works with collage and mixed media at her studio in Sebastopol, California. She received an Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design and Art History from Washington University School of Art. She was a Studio Artist and Arts Educator at Root Division, an arts incubator in San Francisco’s Mission District while pursuing a Masters Degree in Integral Counseling Psychology from the California Institute for Integral Studies. Focusing mostly on the healing arts as a therapist and owner of SF Women’s Therapy for the last twenty years, Sige returned to her studio practice in 2022 to find herself again after emerging from the cocoon of early motherhood. Sige fell in love with abstract art as a way to unwind her perfectionism and connect with the spontaneous joy of improvisational mark making. She approaches each piece with a beginners mind, holding an openness, eagerness, and lack of preconception, like an alluring dance with the unknown. Her visual language incorporates analogous color palettes and negative space in contrast with bold gestural marks used to express specific emotional landscapes. In her recent work she explores the process of “forgetting and remembering” by veiling layers of collage with a solid field of paint that is then sanded down to excavate a rich history of colors, textures and shapes. What emerges is a surprising interplay of concealing and revealing that speakes to her own inner way of relating with herself and the world.
Sunday, March 9, 2025; 2 - 4pm
Sliding Scale: $10/$15/$20 - RSVP to confirm your seat
(No one will be turned away for lack of funds)
Join us for an engaging discussion moderated by Cynthi Stefenoni with local abstract artists as they explore the creative processes, inspirations, and philosophies behind their work. This panel will delve into the complexities of abstract art, from the use of color and form to the ways in which abstraction communicates emotion and meaning.
Gain insight into how these artists push the boundaries of traditional representation and embrace the freedom of non-representational expression. Whether you're a seasoned art lover or a curious newcomer, this panel promises an enlightening conversation about the power of abstract art.
Panelists
Julia Nelson-Gal‘s work explores concepts around time, deterioration and human complexity, while observing the changing understanding of our world. Her abstract world work often includes repurposed materials, especially books, film, magazines and tools. In 2022, she built a large scale building at Burning Man covered in some 360 linear feet of abstract collage work made from 3000 repurpose books. Nelson-Gal received a MA and BA in Art History and Museum Studies at the University of Michigan and worked in Contemporary Art and Photography Departments at the Detroit Institute of Arts, The Art Institute of Chicago and SFMOMA. She has taught graduate Mixed Media Photography classes at the Academy of Art.
Gordon Studer’s earthy, confident abstracts are rooted in his discipline as an award-winning commercial illustrator, lending his work a strong, graphic cadence. The result speaks to liminal experience, interstitial time, and dreamscapes in deliberate forms in black atop a palette of ochre, sky blue, and crushed clays. Having studied fine art at Penn State, he went on to teach at the California College of the Arts, and enjoyed a 25 year career telling visual stories for Fortune 500 corporate clients and major media outlets. His background is evident as he applies an intentionality to his paintings, delivering on a specific narrative, inviting the viewer to a purposeful encounter. Based in Sausalito, California, he once experienced a bout of complete amnesia, allowing him to refresh his perception of the natural world and question concepts such as imagination, dream, and recollection.
Sige Weisman is an abstract artist, dancer, psychotherapist, mother and community tender. She works with collage and mixed media at her studio in Sebastopol, California. She received an Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design and Art History from Washington University School of Art. She was a Studio Artist and Arts Educator at Root Division, an arts incubator in San Francisco’s Mission District while pursuing a Masters Degree in Integral Counseling Psychology from the California Institute for Integral Studies. Focusing mostly on the healing arts as a therapist and owner of SF Women’s Therapy for the last twenty years, Sige returned to her studio practice in 2022 to find herself again after emerging from the cocoon of early motherhood. Sige fell in love with abstract art as a way to unwind her perfectionism and connect with the spontaneous joy of improvisational mark making. She approaches each piece with a beginners mind, holding an openness, eagerness, and lack of preconception, like an alluring dance with the unknown. Her visual language incorporates analogous color palettes and negative space in contrast with bold gestural marks used to express specific emotional landscapes. In her recent work she explores the process of “forgetting and remembering” by veiling layers of collage with a solid field of paint that is then sanded down to excavate a rich history of colors, textures and shapes. What emerges is a surprising interplay of concealing and revealing that speakes to her own inner way of relating with herself and the world.
Sunday, March 9, 2025; 2 - 4pm
Sliding Scale: $10/$15/$20 - RSVP to confirm your seat
(No one will be turned away for lack of funds)
Join us for an engaging discussion moderated by Cynthi Stefenoni with local abstract artists as they explore the creative processes, inspirations, and philosophies behind their work. This panel will delve into the complexities of abstract art, from the use of color and form to the ways in which abstraction communicates emotion and meaning.
Gain insight into how these artists push the boundaries of traditional representation and embrace the freedom of non-representational expression. Whether you're a seasoned art lover or a curious newcomer, this panel promises an enlightening conversation about the power of abstract art.
Panelists
Julia Nelson-Gal‘s work explores concepts around time, deterioration and human complexity, while observing the changing understanding of our world. Her abstract world work often includes repurposed materials, especially books, film, magazines and tools. In 2022, she built a large scale building at Burning Man covered in some 360 linear feet of abstract collage work made from 3000 repurpose books. Nelson-Gal received a MA and BA in Art History and Museum Studies at the University of Michigan and worked in Contemporary Art and Photography Departments at the Detroit Institute of Arts, The Art Institute of Chicago and SFMOMA. She has taught graduate Mixed Media Photography classes at the Academy of Art.
Gordon Studer’s earthy, confident abstracts are rooted in his discipline as an award-winning commercial illustrator, lending his work a strong, graphic cadence. The result speaks to liminal experience, interstitial time, and dreamscapes in deliberate forms in black atop a palette of ochre, sky blue, and crushed clays. Having studied fine art at Penn State, he went on to teach at the California College of the Arts, and enjoyed a 25 year career telling visual stories for Fortune 500 corporate clients and major media outlets. His background is evident as he applies an intentionality to his paintings, delivering on a specific narrative, inviting the viewer to a purposeful encounter. Based in Sausalito, California, he once experienced a bout of complete amnesia, allowing him to refresh his perception of the natural world and question concepts such as imagination, dream, and recollection.
Sige Weisman is an abstract artist, dancer, psychotherapist, mother and community tender. She works with collage and mixed media at her studio in Sebastopol, California. She received an Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design and Art History from Washington University School of Art. She was a Studio Artist and Arts Educator at Root Division, an arts incubator in San Francisco’s Mission District while pursuing a Masters Degree in Integral Counseling Psychology from the California Institute for Integral Studies. Focusing mostly on the healing arts as a therapist and owner of SF Women’s Therapy for the last twenty years, Sige returned to her studio practice in 2022 to find herself again after emerging from the cocoon of early motherhood. Sige fell in love with abstract art as a way to unwind her perfectionism and connect with the spontaneous joy of improvisational mark making. She approaches each piece with a beginners mind, holding an openness, eagerness, and lack of preconception, like an alluring dance with the unknown. Her visual language incorporates analogous color palettes and negative space in contrast with bold gestural marks used to express specific emotional landscapes. In her recent work she explores the process of “forgetting and remembering” by veiling layers of collage with a solid field of paint that is then sanded down to excavate a rich history of colors, textures and shapes. What emerges is a surprising interplay of concealing and revealing that speakes to her own inner way of relating with herself and the world.