Mercury Twenty presents the work of Dave Meeker Andrew Werby & Jamie Morgan 
images from left: Dave Meeker Andrew Werby Jamie Morgan
Andrew Werby | Juxtamorphs
Mercury Twenty Gallery is proud to announce the first in a number of exhibitions prepared by visiting curators. For November 2010 DeWitt Cheng who writes for Art Ltd. Artillery Sculpture VisualArtSource.com ArtBusiness.com as well as the local weekly newspaper The East Bay Express and teaches at UC Berkeley Extension has selected Oakland sculptor Andrew Werby some of whose "Juxtamorphic" sculptures will be exhibited in public here for the first time. Admirers of fantasy and high tech alike will find them beautiful strange and enthralling.
Werby who studied at California College of Arts (formerly California College of Arts and Crafts) combines traditional techniques of carving and casting in plaster wood and bronze with three-dimensional digital scanning modeling and rendering. As the founder of United Artworks (ComputerSculpture.com) a discount retail distributor for digital sculpture programs and equipment (including the futuristic-looking tripled-lensed 3D scanning camera) he is active in spreading information about the new technology which he employs it in his own works:
ﾓAs a sculptor my work has primarily involved the use of natural forms and textures in assemblageﾔ says Werby. ﾓYou can see some of the pieces Iﾒve done in this ﾓjuxtamorphicﾔ style at UnitedArtworks.com. The work on that site was done using traditional techniques: molding and casting the original forms assembly and recasting in various materials. Since becoming involved with computers 3-D scanners and CNC milling machines Iﾒve stuck with this basic idea but have scanned the source objects instead of casting them have assembled the objects or pieces of them in a 3-D modeling program and made physical parts from the digital models using CAM software and CNC hardware. Sometimes these parts are incorporated in a piece directly or they may be used as stamps or molds.ﾔ
The works in this show will present a varied sampling of Werbyﾒs Juxtamorphs analog and digital ﾓcollageﾔ sculptures that organically combine the shapes textures and colors of natural materials as disparate as trilobite shells and sea-fan leaves; mangos and sunflowers; allosaurus claws and duckbill dinosaur mastodon and cave-bear teeth; and cow thighbones.
Dave Meeker | Beacons
Beaconsﾗthink signal fires lights buoys signs lighthouses radio transmittersﾗare signals guides or warnings that help us navigate the physical world. Because we all need help navigating this world we look to beacons to help keep us on course. For Beacons artist Dave Meeker has created a series of light sculptures as tributes to the guides who influenced his development as an artist. Meekerﾒs personal beacons are other artists musicians directors and writers. Says Meeker ﾓEach has made me stop and ponder their contribution to the human dialog. Some have stopped me dead in my tracks and made me say ﾑwowﾒ; others have had a more subtle influence. Iﾒm inspired by their creativity wit and intellect. In some way this series is a thank you to them. I owe them a great deal of gratitude for guiding the way.ﾔ In creating these small tributes to the beacons that have inspired him the artist hopes in turn to inspire others.
Jamie Morgan | Night & Day
In Night and Day East Bay painter Jamie Morgan presents dynamic images from the urban and industrial landscape. His subjects include freeway ramps gas stations and buildings all chosen to define a sense of place and time. Jamie uses his own photographs as sources for compositions focusing on the qualities of light and color to complete them. ﾓSometimes taking photographs is miraculous when everything is in the right place at the right time says Morgan. ﾓOther times the process is like mining for ore following a vein digging deeper and coming back to the same spot many times to finally hit the mother lode.ﾔ Morgan also revisits scenes captured years ago at night drawn by the simplicity contrast and minimal light but employing a newly found use of color developed in recent years working with day-lit scenes.
Jamie Morgan was born in Princeton New Jersey. He developed his artistic interests in high school and continued to pursue them while majoring in Classics at Stanford. Subsequently he applied his talent to mural making and community art. It was during this period that he developed a penchant for realism. He refined his skills through study at California College of Arts and Crafts where he earned his M.F.A. He has exhibited at Barclay Simpson Fine Arts Gallery (Lafayette CA) Bartlett Fine Arts Gallery (Pleasanton CA) the Collectors Gallery (Oakland CA) Hang (San Francisco) and the Greenlining Institute (Berkeley CA) as well as numerous invitational shows including the California Society of Printmakers. In 1996 he was awarded a grant from the Creative Work Fund to create a mural for Laguna Honda Hospital. Kala Art Institute granted him an Artist Fellowship in 1999 which afforded him six months of time and equipment to focus on color etchings and monoprints and resulted in a show at the Institute. In 2003 and 2006 he completed murals for the Alameda County Art Commission. His work is part of the collection of Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover MA as well as numerous private collections.
ﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅﾅ
Exhibition dates: November 5 ﾖ 27 2010
ﾕ Collectorﾒs Preview: Thursday November 4 6-8pm
ﾕ Opening Reception: Friday November 5 6-9pm (in conjunction with Oakland Art Murmur)
ﾕ Artistsﾒ Talk: Saturday November 6 2pm