Art in the Heart of Larkspur

I don’t know about you, but I don’t get into San Francisco to stroll the art galleries the way I used to. If you love art, that’s such a fine and worthy way to spend a Saturday, don’t you think? But it’s hard to leave Larkspur when it’s so nice and sunny here, and so cold and foggy there.

Then again, not every small town has its own art gallery. Larkspur, however, has a nice spacious one (about 1,000 square feet) in a former grocery store smack in the middle of downtown. Robin Critelli founded the gallery with her late husband, Stephen Berg—hence, Gallery Bergelli—11 years ago. Its mission, says gallery director Julia McEvily, is to show abstract and representational art that’s “both visually exciting and technically sophisticated. We go for what’s aesthetically pleasing to us.”

Most of the gallery’s collectors are local, says McEvily, and the gallery has learned what’s aesthetically pleasing to its visitors, too. “People around here love nature-inspired stuff.”

So now might be a good time to visit the gallery—not only because 11 of the 20-some artists the gallery represents have work up now, but because much of that work reflects our mutual love of nature.

Daniel Tousignant, for instance, who lives in San Francisco, was born on a dairy farm in Minnesota and “spent a lot of time surrounded by birch trees,” says McEvily. The exhibition features one of his oil-on-panel paintings of birch tree trunks, “White Birch 13,” pictured here. With its clean, expressive lines and subtle colors, the paintings transport you to a world pleasingly circumscribed but not narrow.

A nice contrast is Susan McDonnell’s fanciful, intensely detailed, and colorful work, such as “Siamese Garden.” McDonnell, who lives in L.A., does small-scale works in egg tempura on panel. With this time-honored technique, the texture comes from the materials ground into pigment—minerals such as malachite for the greens and lapis for the blues. The dry pigment and water are mixed into a paste, then egg yolk is added as a binder, giving the paintings a richly colored matte finish. McDonnell grinds her pigments herself, and if you look closely, tiny metallic pieces sparkle and wink.

You can see one of Greg Ragland’s three acrylic-on-canvas paintings, “2 Broadtail Hummingbirds in Red,” in the gallery window. Now living in Park City, Utah, Ragland captures a moment we’ve all seen here in Marin and places it against a backdrop that might suggest a giant red blossom, or might simply be a subtly detailed color field. This vibrant painting is a good example of the gallery’s aesthetic, with its realistic hummingbirds in energetic flight against an abstract background.

Eight other gallery artists, including two from Chile, have works in this show as well. Since I’m not writing a catalogue here, I’ll leave you with these three examples and the gallery’s invitation to drop by any Thursday through Sunday. Next up: Bryn Craig’s solo show, ”Iconic Marin.”

Through August 18 (may be extended), Group Exhibition, Gallery Bergelli, 483 Magnolia Ave., Larkspur, 415.945.9454, gallery@bergelli.com.