AMERISTAR GALLERY emerging ARTIST series

The Ameristar Gallery is home to the Foundry Art Centre's Emerging Artist Series.
Artists fresh on the art scene can display their work to introduce their style to the local art community. 

Savannah Schroll Guz

Oracles, Criminals, Mythical Beasts

August 17 - September 28, 2018

 I have been heavily influenced by the richly illustrated books I received as a child from my Mother. These books, including d’Aulaires’ Trolls, the Maud and Miska Petersham-illustrated book Poppy Seed Cakes, Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare, and the Mercer Mayer-illustrated version of Beauty and the Beast, continue to influence my visual language, particularly my paintings. My works on paper explore individual histories and the ways in which recorded images contribute to collective memory; I’m fascinated by vintage photographs, particularly of women and the ways in which they present themselves or are presented. I collect Victorian cabinet cards and antique mugshots and often use these, along with period advertisements, as a springboard for my own drawings and paintings, which explore the psychological realities I perceive in their expressions and body language. My “Women in Water” ink drawing series and related “Men at Sea” series reflect these ongoing interests. This exhibition—which features both acrylic-on-canvas paintings with handmade, lavishly ornamented frames (some incorporating amethyst, moonstone, or quartz cabochons I have set in hand-stamped copper or brass) and framed ink-on-paper drawings—includes three subject categories: oracles, figures who can tell (or have previously foretold) the future; criminals, or figures of dubious backgrounds; and mythical beasts, creatures who exist largely in myth but, here, have traveled directly from my imagination to canvas or paper.