JIM MELCHERT / CARLOS VILLA August 6 - 29, 2003 Gallery Paule Anglim is pleased to announce an exhibition featuring recent works by Jim Melchert and Carlos Villa. Two artists with a long history of friendship framing their parallel careers, Jim Melchert and Carlos Villa have decided to show new works together, although each had been scheduled for a one-person show. A spirit of generosity is common to both artists' personalities and artistic practices. "One of the nicest things you can do for a person is make them food. To give art is to give a gift to someone. Your artwork is a gift that can be accepted or not." Jim Melchert During their teaching years at U.C. Berkeley and the San Francisco Art Institute, both artists have taught and inspired many other artists now enjoying their own recognition. Melchert has been at the center of the Bay Area's artistic growth and served as Visual Arts head at the NEA and Director of the American Academy at Rome. His work has been exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Oakland Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the University Art Museum at UC Berkeley. Melchert has worked in a variety of media, including drawing, film, and ceramics. The path of his artistic development is conceptual, and his ideas led him to a unique process involving ceramic tiles: breaking them, drawing on them, reassembling them and painting dots on them with glaze. The artist will present recent examples of this work in the show. Carlos Villa continues to be an influential figure in the Bay Area art scene. Experimenting with non-academic sculptural materials, he often incorporated these materials into a painting format. Villa made work that helped open eyes and ears to the visual languages of indigenous arts, and allow and encourage the perspective of other cultures. His work has been exhibited at SFMoMA, the Oakland Museum, and the Havana Biennial. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. His new paintings show renewed curiosity in the grid and suggestions provided by the box shape. A reception for the artists will be held Thursday, August 7th from 5:30- 7:30 p.m. at Gallery Paule Anglim. Image: Jim Melchert Repair Series: Minh Nguyen,detail, 2003, broken and glazed porcelin tile,17-1/2" x 17-1/2" x 3/8"