Denice Bartels' current drawing series entitled “Clementine Observes
the Moon” marries the rugged surfaces of moons with sea creatures
and more in Magic Realist narratives. With a view to capturing a
relationship between micro- and macrocosms, choices in imagery
convey the interiority of undersea worlds and the grandest external
universe. In earlier work, an interest in the Light and Space period
informed the formal drawings in her Water Series. She drew from
photos of various patterns of light on the surface of water where she
found a two-dimensional materiality to the light's shapes.
Bartels spent five years traveling overland through all the inhabited
continents before attaining degrees at Claremont Graduate University
and Otis College of Art and Design. She exhibits her drawings
annually at venues which have included the Long Beach Museum of
Art, LA Municipal Art Gallery Barnsdall Park, Louis Stern Gallery,
Gallery 825 and PYO Gallery, in Seoul, South Korea extending
representation across the Pacific. Bartels lives and teaches art in
Los Angeles.