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Sarasota News Leader August 2, 2013 Page 96 GALLUP GALLERY TO PRESENT SOME WONDERFUL ABSTRACTIONS Allyn Gallup Contemporary Art gallery will present Some Wonderful Abstractions Aug. 15 through Oct. 5, featuring paintings and works on paper by Luisa Basnuevo, Michael Kessler, Juri Morioka, Gustavo Ramos Rivera, Yolanda Sanchez, Richard Schemm, Mike Solomon and Valerie Stuart, the gallery has announced. The exhibit also will feature a survey of paintings by Bianca Pratorius, with selections from three bodies of work created over 15 years, and sculpture by Mary-Ann Prack, a news release says. Basnuevo, of Miami, was born in Cuba, the release continues. Her paintings have been exhibited in museums and galleries in the United States and abroad, including the Southeastern Center of Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, NC, and the Musée de Luxembourg in Paris. Her work is in public and corporate collections throughout Florida, including those of the Miami Art Museum, the Ringling Museum, and the Polk Museum of Art in Lakeland, the release continues. Kessler, of Santa Fe, "makes nature-based paintings that merge geometric elements with biomorphism," the release adds. "Influenced by the paintings of Brice Marden and Elizabeth Murray, as well as by the music of Phillip Glass and Steve Reich, his works are characterized by large fields of diaphanous color that are activated by organic linear structures that have been visually and physically woven into a grid structure," which consists of thick slabs of paint, the release notes. Kessler's work is shown and collected around the country. A Frank O'Hara Summer by Mike Solomon. Contributed photo exchange student and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting at Parsons School of Design in 1990. She says of her work, "I always approach the canvas directly, without any preceding sketches or studies. I paint in the manner of Zen, moving my brushes along with my mind's rhythm, relying solely on instinct and intuition. Outside of conscious thought, I search for harmony and form in the play of color and shapes, and a composition gradually emerges." Ramos Rivera, of San Francisco, is an abstract painter "whose work is celebrated for its intense emotional content and its unique, personal symbology," the release points out. "Rivera's paintings combine the palette and iconography of the indigenous cultural heritage of his native Mexico with classic techMorioka, of New York City, was born in Tokyo; niques of post-war American abstraction. In she came to the United States as a high school his paintings, Rivera constructs layers of in-