Parallel Marks, an art exhibition by Gesine Janzen and Robert Royhl at the Grocery Store Gallery, Gallatin Gateway, MT 59730. Opens October 11, 2013 with an artist’s reception from 5 to 8 pm. The show will run from October 11 to November 18, 2013. Viewing is by appointment only after the opening reception. For information or an appointment to see the exhibition, contact E.J. Engler at 763-5146.

“Parallel Marks” will be an exhibition of two series of landscapes contrasting the woodblock prints of Janzen with the layered mixed media pieces of Royhl. Gesine Janzen is currently, the Head of Printmaking at the School of Art at Montana State University. Her current prints are a selection from a series of powerful and moving depictions of rivers. The series started with an artistic journey to the Vistula River Delta in Poland where her ancestors had lived for 100’s of years, but have had to abandon their homes there because of political pressures. The river became a symbol of their time there and a grappling with the meaning of their absence. Since this beginning Janzen has worked on prints of rivers in Montana and Italy using this theme to create rich and dynamic images of movement and time’s erasures.

Robert Royhl is a Professor Emeritus of painting and printmaking at the Montana State University School of Art. He will be showing work from his recent series of landscape of the West. His work is based on closely observed drawings done on site, studying the particular life and light of a specific place. The paintings on exhibit are narratives that begin in this observed facts, but evolve into rich, symbolic worlds full of transfigurations and surreal encounters. These are works on paper done mainly in egg tempera, but layered with pastel, gesso, inks and pigments mixed with glue.

Robert Royhl will be showing landscapes on paper done with a variety of paints and materials. The main media is egg tempera, but layered with pastel, gesso, inks and dry pigments. He has been working on a series of landscapes from the West. His work is based on drawings done on site, studying the life and light of a specific place. Then the paintings are narratives that use these drawings as their starting point, but evolve into   rich symbolic worlds full of transfigurations and surreal encounters.