501 N Market St / Frederick MD

In July TAG/The Artists Gallery will feature two solo exhibitions. 

JULIE MAYNARD will show mixed media collage and sculpture in “Mass Produced Pigeons”.

Maynard’s “Mass Produced Pigeons” looks at how things cut from the same pattern develop a stubborn individuality.  The installation is anchored by a large (almost nine by five feet) mural of a pigeon that flies straight at the viewer.  Other pieces in the show use and reuse the images of a handful of pigeons. 

The installation includes a small flock of plaster birds as well as mixed media pieces that incorporate street posters and graffiti.  A video, “Taking Flight,” adds movement and music, including the haunting tones of ‘pigeon whistles’ worn by birds circling over the streets of Beijing.

“Pigeons don’t get much respect,” Maynard says, “but they have found ways to flourish around the world.  They may seem interchangeable— almost monotonously the same— but they are worth a second look.”

Maynard’s previous exhibitions have included “Train Wrecks” and “Trespass.”  With “Pigeons,” her fifth show at TAG, she hopes to provide an environment for her pieces: “Something overhead, something underfoot, with motion and sound as well as color, pattern, and fragments of text. 

“Come see the World’s Largest Collage Pigeon,” Maynard jokes, “then stay for all the little details of life at street-level.”
 

CHARLES W. BOWERS will show photo-based images in his "Nature’s Colors Textures Patterns" series.  

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The pieces in Bowers’ "Nature’s Colors Textures Patterns" are one-of-a-kind, hand-pulled image transfers. The photo-based, digitally painted images are transferred from film to wood, paper, metal, glass, or canvas.
Bowers’ images of flowers, fruits and plants are rendered in densely textured colors that have an earthy quality, as befits things that have grown from the soil.
His palette ranges from the dusky browns of "Mushrooms" to the greens of "Agave" and "Artichoke" and on to the bright colors of “Rudbeckia,” “Sunflower,” and “Clematis.”  Although these flowers grow and bloom and die, their images have a solidity that makes them seem as if they'll keep right on blooming.
Bowers is a practicing landscape architect who specializes in residential gardens.   “I chose photography to realize my need to create art beyond building beautiful gardens,” he says.
“Accompanying my move into the digital image capture photographic world, I have expanded into digital painting, digital texturing and collaging.  I also do emulsion transfers and various forms of mixed media. My results are printed using state of the art archival pigmented inks.”
Bowers’ art has appeared in numerous one-person and group exhibitions and in local, national and international publications. He has produced a photography book about a garden through the seasons and the years.”

These exhibitions and a show of work by the other members of the gallery will run from July 1 through 31, with a reception from 5 to 9pm during First Saturday on July 2.