PORT TOWNSEND — An exhibit featuring four regional artists, 4×4: Art by Design, is on view at the Northwind Art Jeanette Best Gallery through Aug. 7.
The exhibit features works by Brian O’Neill of Bellingham; Tim Celeski and Leslie Newman, both of Indianola; and David Owen Hastings of Sequim.
The exhibit, which opened Thursday at the gallery at 701 Water St., will host an artists’ talk and meet at 1 p.m. Saturday. Gallery hours are from noon to 5 p.m. Thursday through Monday.
“All of these artists share a common career path,” said Kathleen Garrett, exhibits director at Northwind Art. “They all started out as graphic designers and continue to use those skills as they have migrated to the world of fine art.”
The show focuses on abstract art in mediums including prints, quilts, ceramic vessels, digital painting and abstract wood sculpture.
“Each of these artists have such a breadth of experience and talent,” Garrett said. “We’re very excited to be able to share this work at Jeanette Best Gallery during the summer season.”
O’Neill said most the forms he makes are vessels.
“While not always ‘functional’ in the traditional sense, each piece has an interior and an exterior — much like all of us,” he said on his website, www.brianoneill ceramics.com.
“The visible form and the more hidden space inside is an anthropomorphic relationship I enjoy exploring.”
Celeski has worked in a variety of disciplines such as architecture, making jazz music, graphic design, professional photography, digital design, furniture making and the fine arts.
“I use hand and power tools to carve and transform the material into a new form,” he said on his website, timceleski.com. “The results are panels, wall art, vessels and free standing sculpture sized from 10 inches to over 10 feet.
“Like the trees the wood comes from, every piece is unique. Each work is shaped, sculpted, textured and smoothed with a tactile and sensuous surface that’s warm to the touch.”
Hastings describes himself as a quilter, graphic designer and print and textile artist on his website, davidowenhastings.com.
He said he was the 2020 president of the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild.
“I create richly-layered contemporary artwork and modern minimal quilt and textile designs.
“For over 20 years, I’ve exhibited my stitched paper artwork in galleries and juried shows, and worked exclusively with nonprofit organizations on their branding and communications,” he said.
Newman was born in Berkeley, Calif., grew up in a Seattle suburb, and after 25 years in Seattle, now lives and works surrounded by nature in Indianola.
Her career as a designer and illustrator and many years of art study with expressive painter Barbara Fugate inform her abstract iPad paintings, mixed-media originals and modernist “Shapemaking” prints.
Since 2017, she has completed four Instagram 100-day art challenges, creating and posting an original abstract daily.
“Abstraction is freedom,” she said on her website, leslienewman.art. “Without the constraints of representation, I explore space, form, line and color, creating artwork that invites a long look and sparks imagination.”
