Green Chalk Contemporary art gallery is pleased to present Exploring the Southern Sierra, a solo exhibition by Alan Sonneman, November 7 - January 10. Everyone is welcome to join us for a talk by the artist on Friday, December 11, 5pm-6pm.

Alan Sonneman, a long time California resident, has spent the past 17 summers in the high alpine regions of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains documenting many of the National Park’s most compelling scenic views. Moving slowly from place to place, using a camera to record his observations, Sonneman captures these direct experiences of time and place in both photographs and paintings.

Sonneman created this body of work with an awareness of its context to art history as well as to contemporary art. In their affinity with the massive scale of the physical world, these paintings bring to mind the work of Michael Heizer or James Turrell as much as Fredrick Church or Thomas Moran. But they also evoke a time when Romantic artists were not afraid to address the idea that art could be a transcendent experience. Sonneman is searching for something found in a moment of complete silence, a place where the scale of nature gives us a direct understanding of our own identity and our relationship to the world. This is the world as it is... its forces and its immense scale.

Recently, the Department of State Arts in Embassies Program acquired several of Sonneman’s paintings for the new U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan. Two of these works depict the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Green Chalk Contemporary art gallery is open Tuesday - Saturday, 1pm-5pm and by appointment. For more information, please phone Gail Enns at 831-718-7232.