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 Story and photos by Anjie Park
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| Take a walk down Alisal Road and enter into the imagination of local artist, Kurt Van Wagner. Across the street from the Solvang Post Office, Vineyards Gallery is an unexpected surprise for art collectors and art appreciators. Focusing exclusively on Central Coast artists, Vineyards Gallery showcases the talents of, among others, Barbara Galloway, known for grand colorful acrylics; Linda Mutti, painter of Central Coast watercolor landscapes; David Campbell, who sculpts calcite rock; and Kurt’s own spectacular digitally painted and texturized photography. “I take my own original photographs and make them come alive,” says Kurt. “The photograph is only the beginning. It becomes my canvas.” On any given day, visitors to the gallery may be found touching Kurt’s photographs and exclaiming, “It must be a painting!” or “It must be a photograph!” to which Kurt laughingly responds, “Well, it’s both.” Kurt has been an artist nearly all his life. As a child living in Southern California, he loved to make mosaics from glass tiles, shells, and rocks which he and his father collected at the beach. His favorite hobby was stamp-collecting, which served to intensify his hunger to learn more about the cultures that each stamp represented. Kurt later studied photography in high school and spent the two summers following graduation hitchhiking and traveling by bus and train throughout Europe and North Africa. His adventures were recorded with his prized Yashica camera, and some of those original images are currently on display at the gallery. Kurt Van Wagner and his wife, Jenni, have continued to travel the world, capturing the beauty of vast landscape scenery and foreign culture on film. But it was the new world that opened for Kurt after he bought his first computer in 1999 that changed his life. He was eager to learn about graphic tools that might breathe new life into his photography. He began showing his new works in this medium in 2001, and has been featured at many shows since, including the Faulkner Gallery, Gallery Los Olivos, Cypress Gallery, Gallery 113, and the Reynolds Gallery at Westmont College. The Vineyards Gallery opened last April and its mission was to promote local artists and offer them the opportunity to exhibit works that might not work in the Santa Ynez and Los Olivos art scene. “You won’t find western art here!” says Kurt. “What you will find is variety in color and light and texture, in a variety of media at a variety of prices. We have everything from oils, watercolors, and pastels to photography, fused glass and wood and rock sculpture.” To his surprise, Kurt is finding that the gallery’s biggest sellers are photos and prints of his abstract human figures. Although Kurt is a relatively new kid on the block in the gallery scene, he and Jenni have lived in the Valley for almost 20 years. Jenni has worked the past two decades for Solvang optometrist, Dr. Dennis Bales. Their daughter, Sunni Van Wagner, graduated from Santa Ynez Valley High School in the early nineties where she shone in the art program and as the lead role in many of the school’s dramatic productions. Kurt has maintained ongoing membership in the Artists’ Guild of the Santa Ynez Valley, the Santa Barbara Art Association, and the Lompoc Valley Art Association. Kurt and Jenni are looking forward to a spring trip to Costa Rica to photograph the gorgeous flowers there. “The Valley is our home,” says Kurt. “Although we love to travel and see the world, this is a wonderful place to return to.” Vineyards Gallery hosts an open house every quarter when a new show is hung. Santa Ynez Valley residents and visitors are invited to join Kurt and Jenni and the artists of Vineyards Gallery to celebrate the beauty of humanity and the world that we live in. For information about Vineyards Gallery open house events, Kurt Van Wagner’s art, or to join the mailing list, visit www.vineyardsgallery.moonfruit.com or phone 805.693.8060. |
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Copyright 2006, Inside Santa Ynez Valley Magazine, All Rights Reserved |
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