Essence
$ Free. RSVP recommended.
2:30 pm to 4:30 pm
Saturday, January 22, 2022

A contemporary view of nature by two California artists

Kim Cheselka and Jan Watten

Exhibit Dates: January 22 – February 25, 2022

Opening Reception: Saturday, January 22nd | 2:30 – 4:30pm | RSVP recommended

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Open Gallery Hours: January 29th, February 5th, February 12th, February 19th | 2:30-4:30pm

For the health and safety of our community, Rhythmix requests that ALL guests to the K Gallery be fully vaccinated and remain masked during the opening reception and exhibit viewings. For Rhythmix complete COVID-19 Safety Guidelines, click here.

Essence brings together the work of artists Kim Cheselka and Jan Watten. Both artists are engaged with unique approaches to image-making using analog film photography and painting. With nature as their inspiration, these tranquil observations express the importance of exploring and celebrating the beauty of our world.

Jan Watten captures the natural world around her in black and white with a medium format film camera, seizing the moment into contemplative and lyrical images. Her images evolve from observing and exploring the natural world – with the objective of capturing an essence of nature.

Kim Cheselka’s large scale gouache paintings focus on the symbolic nature of tree growth rings and investigate memories past and emotions present. Her work entices the viewer to delve not only into her unique visual expression but their own process of investigation as well.

Artist Statements

Jan Watten

Jan Watten is interested in capturing and expressing the spirit of her subject. The images in her current series evolve from observing and exploring the natural world around her. This body of work is also a form of meditation as she attempts to look at the world with introspection and stillness – with a focus on creating contemplative images. It is the slow art of slow photography.

Watten is from Oakland, California and has a BFA in Photography from California College of Arts and Crafts. She has been making photographs for more than 25 years in her Oakland studio in the Jingletown Arts District. She has shown domestically and internationally. She still shoots with film.

Kim Cheselka

By channeling the innate practice of gathering, observing and exploring, visual artist Kim Cheselka creates compelling narratives. Through this process, in painting, sculptural work and installations, identifiable and often common objects become elements in her personal iconography.

“I am older now. I look at objects and things differently.

Spending time in nature has always been a necessity for me.

This need only continues to grow stronger with the years.

My large-scale gouache paintings of tree cross sections allow me to bring my forest walks and thoughts back into the studio.

Focusing on the growth rings, the process takes me on a journey, an acknowledgment of the past, a meditation, pondering the then and now.

If trees could talk.”

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