Awaken Cafe
1429 Broadway (@ 15th Street)
Oakland, CA 94612
1429 Broadway (@ 15th Street)
Oakland, CA 94612
Opening Reception: Sunday December 17, 3-5pm
Paintings are all reasonably priced. If you're interested, I can send you a price list.
The Kingdom Is Within
paintings from the perilous imagination in nature
The
relationship between the human and natural worlds has been ingrained in our psyches
for centuries as an adversarial one. But
while each of us leaves footprints on the ecosystem, we all exist within it. After all, who is not a part of nature? Ashes to ashes. We are all part of what poet Gary Snyder has
called “one vast breathing body.”
Imagination and
dreaming provide deep connections with commonality. They provide direction and context. We must learn to be guided by nature more
accurately, to listen to its myriad complexity, its interconnection so
pervasive that it exceeds our limitations.
We must listen with imagination and follow the ancient elemental poetry
of the world, even when it seems perilous.
Poetry is encoded within
the forms all around us; one only has to look closely to see it. I
paint to discover the world and to imagine it anew.
About Brian Strang’s painting, the SF Bay Guardian has said, “Strang’s work... suggests a more
romantic pleasure in and response to visual phenomena. It betrays a rhythmic sensibility not unlike
that found in a sketch by Matisse” (6/13/07).
His paintings, which all contain written
poetic text, have been exhibited many times over the last ten years in solo and
group shows, have been republished in magazines and currently reside in many
private collections. He has lived in
East Oakland for fifteen years, teaches English at San Francisco State
University, has had several books of poetry published, most recently Dark Adapt by Duration Press, and plays
guitar in Crow Crash Radio.
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