The Willow Glen Resident

Photograph by Skye Dunlap

Drawing Attention: Dianne Wagoner (foreground) and Connie Jackson admire 'Rising Form: Wedding' by Willow Glen artist Karen von Felten, whose work will be exhibited at Saratoga's Gallery at Montalvo through Oct. 25.

Women's garments become symbolic in Montalvo exhibit

By Shari Kaplan

At the Gallery at Villa Montalvo, two Bay Area artists have joined creative forces in one exhibit titled Woman Rising: The Garment. Karen von Felten and Charla Groves, who work respectively out of Willow Glen and Palo Alto studios, depict feminine garments in different ways to offer thoughtful and often unconventional ways of thinking.

A central piece is von Felten's "Rising Form: Wedding." This 13-foot graphite-on-paper drawing shows a wedding dress rising vertically toward the ceiling. The low V-line in front and back reveals a white glow that both illuminates and animates the graceful garment.

On a smaller scale is a trio of oil-on-canvas paintings of christening dresses in blue, yellow and red. Like the wedding gown, these lacy little clothes also possess an animation--in this case the movement one might expect from an actual baby.

The dresses are not limited to the primary colors, however; each contains a variety of hues. "Primary Christening Yellow," for example, contains generous strokes of pink, blue, mauve, lavender and white. As with an Impressionistic painting, the effect is best experienced by stepping away.

Von Felten also offers "Summer Dress," a soft pastel-on-paper image of the simple dress a pre-adolescent girl might wear. It contrasts the other clothes in that it seems to hover plainly as though hooked on a hanger. Perhaps this represents that awkward stage between the exuberant innocence of a baby or young girl and the sensual maturity of a newly married woman.

"Compelling themes in these drawings include the inevitable progression of persona in a woman's life. [They] contain and define the woman in our culture as they are put on and taken off," von Felten explains in her artist's statement.

Much of Groves' art also focuses on women's garments. In "Chevy," she takes an actual frilly nightgown, crinkles it into a pile and covers it with metallic paints. Groves says this brings to her mind people's overzealous desire to be elegant or classy--"The piece in the end conveyed the chrome of a flashy car and was a symbol of misplaced longing."

In "Sweep," Groves takes ragged strips of fabric that resemble a wedding gown and ties them together to form a provocative shape resembling a cross between a net and a cage.

"My work begins with a particular material. The material is like my body in that it is a temporary substance with the potential to express life," Groves explains of her mixed-media pieces. "The material itself evokes one or many sympathies or connections according to past experiences, a recollection, or how I associate it culturally, just as my body carries with it memories and impressions of past experiences."

The exhibit runs through Oct. 25. The Gallery, located at 15400 Montalvo Road, is open Thursday and Friday, 1-4 p.m.; and Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. For information, call 961-5813.

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