The Places We Know

Selected works by Betsy Kendall, Ari Targownik, and Judy Shelton

October 14 – January 10
Our community touches the bay on the west and hills to the east, spanning the diverse scenery of our neighborhoods, ranging from tree-lined streets to deteriorating industrial buildings covered in graffiti. For Betsy Kendall, Ari Targownik, and Judy Shelton the roads, buildings, and views of the East Bay hold a particular fascination. Their art captures layers of our urban environments and builds a record of not just what a place looks like but how it feels. As you view their paintings, you will have sparks of recognition for these are the places we know.

About the Artists

Betsy Kendall

Everything starts with brush marks. My teachers taught abstract expressionist process: abstract ideas didn’t stick. For me, real life subjects are exciting aplenty. When direct experience comes out in paint, it becomes new. The motion of looking and recording required to construct an image, that’s what brings a painting to life.

I experienced frequent change as my Foreign Service family moved every two years. Looking hard at the environment and people became an anchor. My mother showed me clever little plants, pretty rocks, goldfish in our gardens. She and Dad took us to hiking in jungles and wandering in museums. Standing in the room at the Prado devoted to Las Meninas magnetized me to the shared world in a painted scene. What is Home? The place we are together.

For more information and to see additional work from Betsy Kendall, visit betsykendall.com »

Ari Targownik

Ari Targownik is a New York City native who found a passion for drawing at a young age. This led him to pursue art at LaGuardia High School in Manhattan. He continued his education at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn where he studied oil painting and received a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art.

Taking those skills, he moved to California to enter the video game industry. There he joined a game studio and worked for over a decade producing 3D graphics, concept art, and illustrations.

Now practicing both fine art and digital art, the two disciplines continue to inform each other in the creative process.

For more information and to see additional work from Ari Targownik, visit aritopia.com »

Judy Shelton

The ongoing subject of my work is Berkeley. My paintings portray places and things that speak to me, and often depict urban blight and change, the juxtaposition of nature with the built environment, and the beauty of long, late afternoon shadows. Most of my self-chosen work is not for sale. Instead, I take commissions of the things and scenes that speak to YOU. If you have a favorite house, place or object that you love and would like to memorialize in a painting, you can commission one with the understanding that if you don’t like it, you don’t buy it.

Judy lives and works in Berkeley, California.