"Lens Versus Brush"

“Lens Versus Brush”

welcomes fall with "Lens Versus Brush". This exhibition highlights a stimulating group of artists working in painting, photography or both. Throughout history people have expressed favoritism for a particular art form, for some it is painting, others it is photography, some mixed media.

Renowned Writer and Activist, Susan Sontag once said “The Painter Constructs, the Photographer Discloses,” but is this really as black and white as that? This topic has been debated at length from numerous essays, to panels,

Renowned Writer and Activist, Susan Sontag once said “The Painter Constructs, the Photographer Discloses,” but is this really as black and white as that? This topic has been debated at length from numerous essays, to panels, to competitions and many exhibitions, with artists, academics and collectors all taking various stances.

Royse has selected an enticing collection of artworks for "Lens Versus Brush", aiming to create an exciting dialogue further fueling consideration to compare, contrast, and question these ideals and preferences.

A unique assortment of original paintings, photography and mixed media artworks have been accumulated from artists creating here in Arizona. This exhibition features work from artists: James Angel, Cam DeCaussin, Cherie Buck-Hutchison, Peter Brian Klein, Marilyn Szabo, Daniel Shepherd, Casey Wakefield, and special guest artist JB

The essence of each artwork, the true skill of the artists, and the genuine beauty of their art forms is emotive and captivating. “I believe each artist brings their own voice, story and style to each work of art created,” states Royse. No matter what form the artist has chosen to express their creativity, all art forms are truly important in their own right.

Art is more than just its forms, but rather the importance of the artist. Internationally known photographer and educator, Jack Welpott stated, “In my view, photography and painting really share one history. The influences that work on one, work on the other.”

“Perhaps we must blur the lines between Photography or Painting and simply embrace the art and creative process itself,” states curator Nicole Royse. The "Lens Versus Brush" is a must see exhibition that is sure to engage and inspire.

By Casey Wakefield

& Mixed Media

By Casey Wakefield Oil & Mixed Media on

By Casey Wakefield Oil & Mixed Media on Canvas,

Casey Wakefield

Casey Wakefield is an abstract artist who creates color impressions. She captures the essence of experiences, moments, and memories in unique and spontaneous color patterns. Her depictions express a contemplative and genuine transformation of colors, drips, and marks onto the canvas with mixed media and oil that develop into individual layers and depth within each piece of art. When viewing her abstract paintings, you will see and feel an inner working that has traveled onto the canvas. She creates her artwork in her studio while listening to different genres of music, usually based on what experience or memory she is depicting. For her the joy of painting is to watch the abstract emerge into something that evolves from the process and the finished painting will hopefully create an emotional connection for someone. "In the process of painting, I have found that each brushstroke is just like the journey in life, taking one step at a time towards your purpose and surprised by how you transform and evolve by trusting each step." Her paternal grandparents were raised in the Amish faith and within Casey's artwork you can see an internal reflection of their way of life in her minimalist, but purposeful approach to her abstract paintings.

Wakefield grew up in small Midwestern town in central Illinois. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Illinois State University. Wakefield has studied classical painting at the Milan Art Institute, where she discovered her passion for color and applying layers of paint and letting the process determine the outcome. Wakefield currently resides in the Gilbert with her husband and three children.

By Marilyn Szabo

By Marilyn Szabo

Marilyn Szabo

Growing up in the heart of American history – Norfolk, Virginia, Marilyn Szabo began a lifelong interest in history and photography. She received her Bachelors in History from Virginia Commonwealth University with a minor in Photography. Szabo is a true creative force in Arizona culture and has worked for over twenty-five years as a photographer. Her photographic subjects vary from people to architecture to landscape, and the work has been praised for its depth, craftsmanship and versatility. Her work can be found in many public and private collections throughout the U.S. as well as receiving the Alligator Juniper’s 2010 National Photography Award and cover. She has extensively exhibited her artwork nationally and internationally, while garnering prestigious awards and grants including five from the arts commission. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including Triumph of Our Communities, Black and White, Focus, In/Sights: Self-Portraits by Women edited by Joyce Tenneson Cohen, just to name a few.

In 2014 At Work in Arizona: the First 100 Years book was published and funded by Alliance Bank of Arizona, featuring 168 pages including 80 of Szabo’s photographs. This impressive photographic project was a 15-year endeavor created by Szabo, who took on numerous roles including: artist, curator and historian. The exhibition presented a selection of images from the project providing a glimpse into Arizona’s past including images of transportation, mining, and manufacturing to agriculture, retail and the arts. In 2017 Szabo presented a new art installation “Ligature” at the Walter Art Gallery in Scottsdale, featuring photographs although surreal are figurative, both mysterious and lyrical, offering viewers a visual extravagance and a strange glamour. Szabo’s Life&Death: Portraits were exhibited at the Mesa Arts Center this summer, highlighting a “landscape of Arizona personalities and international persons” photographed by Szabo over a 25 year period. She is currently working on several books, including historical photography by an Arizona Photographer Jim Gorraiz and Szabo’s Life&Death: Portraits.

“I should have cried”

By Cam DeCaussin Oil on Wood Panel, 30”x30”x2”, 2021, $3250

I ask is a tall ship and a star to sail her by”

Cam DeCaussin

on

“It’s too late to change your mind”

By Cam DeCaussin Oil on Wood Panel, 12”x20”, 2022, $1600

By Cam DeCaussin Oil on Wood

“You Told me it was fine”

fill the

Cam DeCaussin

Cam DeCaussin is a skilled oil painter with a keen eye for detail along with an incredible ability to capture the energy and mystery within his subjects. His work is inspired by empty, quiet living spaces and their ability to express themes of solace, sadness, separation and contemplation. DeCaussin has been greatly influenced by the work of painter Edward Hopper and photographer Gregory Crewdson, whose powerful work share similar themes.

The artist is drawn to the physiological response to flirt with voyeurism, each painting acts as a living television screen. A reminder that we truly are not the center of our own universe, but background actors in an infinite amount of story lines, and we exist in that story often for brief seconds. Primarily focusing on moments within neighborhoods during the dawn and dusk hours of the day. DeCaussin’s latest collection “at home,” emphasizes the beauty of the Arizona sky, midcentury architecture and life in the desert. Seeing a shift in his themes, incorporating the struggles, worries, and questions of parenthood.

Formally trained in the arts receiving his Bachelors of Fine Art in Illustration from Grand Valley State University and his Masters of Fine Art in Painting and Drawing from Arizona State University. His work has been featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions including: AZ Biennial Tucson Museum of Art, Mesa Contemporary Art Museum, and Renmin University. DeCaussin currently resides in Phoenix and is a Professor of Drawing and Painting at Arizona State University.

JB Snyder

JB Snyder is Phoenix-based artist with his studio in the heart of the downtown Phoenix art community at Grand Art Haus. He is best known for his color-rich abstract grids, which are often compared to stained glass. His creative use of abstract shapes and lines paired with vibrant color palette transform blank canvases into incredible master pieces.

He is a prominent mural artist, and his artwork can be found throughout the valley at such locations as Create Academy, Lost Leaf, Distrito Restaurant, the Saguaro Hotel, Gringo Star and Modern Manor, and throughout the architecture of Roosevelt Row in downtown Phoenix.

Snyder creates his art because he enjoys making people smile and brightening this bleak landscape.

By Peter Brian Klein

By Peter Brian Klein

By Peter Brian Klein

By Peter Brian Klein

By Peter Brian Klein

By Peter Brian Klein

Peter Brian Klein

Peter Brian Klein was born, raised and educated in Phoenix, Arizona. He fell in love with photography at a young age and ever since then he knew that it would be on a life longjourney of learning and exploration of the photographic process.

Klein’s initial education with Photography was with using film and printing in a darkroom. He has always been fond of the tangible process of using chemistry and experimentation to create art from a latent image. This does not mean he is a purist, in fact he has fully embraced the tools of the digital revolution and continues to experiment with using a myriad of new digital printing techniques and materials that are now available.

Klein’s aesthetic vision is primarily Black &White while his subject matter often varies as his perspective may shift from natural to architectural and even Avant-grade imagery. “The allure of B&W photography is its nostalgic, timeless qualities, how it can set the mood and emphasize emotion,” states Klein. Most recently he debuted his latest collection of color photography capturing the majestic beauty of Northern Arizona titled "ReverenceofPlace&Time.” This new collection features stunning color dual layered photographic prints on polished acrylic. Klein, a true master of his craft, feels that art is a communicative device that should convey, and even at times, create emotion.

By Cherie Buck-Hutchison

By Cherie Buck-Hutchison

By Cherie Buck-Hutchison

By Cherie Buck-Hutchison

Cherie Buck-Hutchison

Cherie Buck-Hutchison is an American artist living in Phoenix, Arizona. Buck-Hutchison is a photo and video-based artist, often incorporating other mediums into her work. She summons the use of her imagination to reorient spatial and social boundaries. Her use of layered imagery is a counteraction of the movement to invisibility that is often imposed through authoritarian practices. The lens shifts to bring the unseen into greater focus by manipulating the private onto the public landscape. Red rock configurations and canyons often appear in her imagery; a manifestation of her interest in reconciling the metaphoric interiority and exteriority of the landscape.

In this series formerly marginalized women share an intrepid role in the transformation of leadership within specific cultures. Using family photos, the women in imagery such Sisters Lead at Dinosaur National Monument are magically empowered while still allowing space for all genders. Unfolding through time and space, Buck-Hutchison’s work portrays an invented American melancholy, inviting conversation regarding contemporary women’s issues within a national identity. The enchanted southwest of the future is deftly layered into existence.

Buck-Hutchison has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Intermedia from the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University. She is the former co-President of eye lounge Gallery, a collective of eleven artists in downtown Phoenix. She was named one of the top 100 Creatives in Phoenix, Arizona in 2016 by The New Times. She is a cofounder of InSight, an initiative to deepen community, cultural and artistic practices through collaborations between the visual and literary populace in Phoenix, Arizona. Her recent exhibitions include the Brownsville Art Museum, The Old Courthouse Center for the Arts, eye lounge Gallery, Bokeh Gallery at the MonOrchid, the Providence Art Club and the Appaloosa branch of Scottsdale’s Public Library.

We must think about the artist as storyteller, exploring the different tactics taken to express themselves. How they create a narrative through their work, examining their aesthetic and material choices, composition, and artistic practices.

“Good Grammar”

By James Angel Mixed Media, on Canvas, 18”x24”, 2022, $900

Good Grammar II”

By James Angel Mixed Media, on Canvas,

James Angel

James Angel was born in Kansas City Missouri in 1968. He was raised and resides in the Phoenix-Metro area. He is an internationally published studio artist based in Scottsdale Arizona, specializing in the creation of Original Fine Art, Sculpture and Limited Edition Prints for Home Decor, Interior Design, Commercial and Contemporary spaces.

My current work explores the concept of future, the abstract ever-elusive notion just beyond our control. Events that may or may not occur though are expected by some. A perpetual state of hope and despair. The future seems never realized. We are all aware of our own transience and at a certain point it becomes, not about the future anymore, but the quality of life in our time remaining. This is a time of great reflection. What will I leave behind? It's a recognition of the artist's historic role as exemplifier of the future and how it potentially affects the outcome by framing what the future will look like. This work informs my desire to contribute to the visual language that helps shape what the future will look like."

Recognized as a major contributor to an emerging downtown arts scene he is one of the founders of the artist collective 3CARPILEUP and the local Chaos Theory annual event. James has studied under and worked with several well-known artists and publishers and has exhibited in many galleries and museums.

By Daniel Shepherd aka Too Fang Skinny

Daniel Shepherd

Daniel Shepherd is a self-taught Phoenix based artist who creates minimal abstract paintings and fascinating vintage collages. Shepherd developed a style he calls "Ambient Painting, "the result in his very popular “Colour Box” Series. These minimalist abstract paintings utilize Acrylic paint on repurposed hand distressed wood panels. The artist refers to his painting technique as “Ambient Painting” working with bright and saturated colors often colliding with pastels or minimal abstractions becoming more expansive with a plaintive serenity.

Shepherd’s alter ego “Too Fang Skinny” creates “Vintage Collages” reconfiguring imagery and subjects in interesting and often unusual ways while still retaining all the grace, elegance and natural beauty of their original forms. His style is organic, combining a variety of images to create each work. Producing his collages entirely from repurposed materials really excites Shepherd because he enjoys the idea of these “things” which once served a specific use now years later reused for something completely different. His work is included in private collections around the world, and he has exhibited extensively throughout Arizona and California at such venues as For The People and represented by Royse Contemporary.

“Lens Verses Brush” highlights an exceptional group of artists with a diverse collection of work ranging in styles while concentrating on painting and photography.

Opening night for “Lens Versus Brush” included a wonderful gathering of both guests and artists. Excellent discussions ensued about painting and photography, all while enjoying incredible art, wine and conversation!

7077 E. Main Street, Suite 6, Scottsdale, AZ

Phone: 602-810-3449

Nicole@nicoleroyse.com