Summer Sizzles

with dazzling new artwork from emerging artists at Trenton’s Gallery 125.

By: Susan Van Dongen
("Casally Enterprise" by Brian Casally, on view at Gallery 125 in Trenton.)
   No offense, but has anyone ever told pen-and- ink artist Brian Casally that he’s a teensy bit obsessive compulsive? He creates petite black and white worlds on paper, cities with meandering checkered streets, elaborate structures and all kinds of decorative minutia. It all began with classroom boredom in high school and college, where the Hamilton native doodled to pass the time.
   Now Mr. Casally revisits his pen-and-ink worlds almost as a form of meditation, since the meticulous drawing relaxes him, takes him somewhere beyond the ordinary.
   "Considering all the time I spend, it is like putting yourself in another world," Mr. Casally says. "I would say the drawings take months and months, but for some of them I couldn’t say how long, because I made them in high school and college, just being bored and doodling in a notebook."
   As far as the obsessiveness, Mr. Casally cheerfully agrees and says his personality has helped his sideline business of house painting. Everything has to be done in a certain sequence, done well and then cleaned up, and so far his clients are thrilled that their painter guy is a neat freak.
   "People are beating my door down with work," he says. "I’m in demand."
   Meanwhile, Mr. Casally can publicly enjoy his other life as an artist, now that his drawings have been in two exhibits at Gallery 125 in Trenton. Two of his pen-and-ink creations are on view in the group show Sizzle — The Summer Show, which runs through Aug. 4.
   A musician as well as an artist, Mr. Casally was first inspired to try pen-and-ink when he tried to copy the exquisite cover of the Beatles’ Revolver album, drawn by Klaus Voormann.
   "I love the Beatles and it’s an intense little drawing so I tried to replicate that," he says. "Later I decided to make those cities. I did most of them on a small scale. People say it reminds them of M.C. Escher."
   The Dutch graphic artist is known for his mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs and mezzotints, which feature labyrinthine, seemingly infinite constructions and explorations of architecture. Mr. Casally also gives a nod to Salvador Dalí and surrealism — "anything weird and interesting" — as well as the graphic novels of Frank Miller.
   He majored in art, graphic design and computer graphics at The College of New Jersey and comes from an extended family of artists.
   "I’ve also always been interested in architectural drawing and have done some freelance work with that," Mr. Casally says. "I just really enjoy doing these drawings. It’s a way of relieving stress, almost like meditation."
   For Natalia Gali of Belle Mead, painting and art literally is meditation, a spiritual healing tool. Her oil painting "Desire to Receive II," also included in the Sizzle exhibit at Gallery 125, is one of nine in a series she created over the course of a year.
   "I had started to study yoga and with my studies began to read about Buddhism, Kabbalah, all kinds of mysticism," Ms. Gali says. "There’s the idea that to get the result you want, you have to have the desire."
   "Before results comes the intention, before fulfillment comes the desire," she writes in her artist’s statement. "My paintings address the desire to receive light, life and love. In my art I examine the desire and one’s capacity to grow and flourish. The tree branches in my paintings represent the human spirit in its potentiality and expression. Desire to reach for the sun represents one’s spiritual growth."
   The symbolic painting incorporates the sun as representing God or the universal mind, with the branches evoking the human spirit and its longing to evolve and grow.
   Ms. Gali has been doing yoga for years, but is more passionate about it now and finds great inspiration in yogic and mystical teachings.
   "I wanted to infuse my paintings with positive transforming energy, and I wanted the energy to be concentrated enough in the painting so that it will reach to the viewer," she says. "That is why these paintings go so well with yoga practice. I want to convey a message about the transforming energy of creation that is working in our lives at every moment, that goes beyond just body experience, to an understanding of deeper self and human experience that is not limited by body or ordinary circumstance."
   A native of Latvia, Ms. Gali says her schooling and general rearing was not geared toward arts and philosophy, but practical matters.
   "Growing up in Latvia, my parents stressed physics and math, and my degree is in business," she says. "But I lived with my aunt in Boston for a while and she’s an artist. That’s when I got completely fascinated with art. I started painting about six or seven years ago."
   Studying at the Arts Council of Princeton as well as Artworks in Trenton, Ms. Gali was fortunate to find a mentor in Belgian-born François André, now 80-something and living in Philadelphia.
   "She still lives alone, so I say that I’m lucky to have her but she is also lucky to have me," Ms. Gali says. "I go to see her quite frequently when she’s not in Europe and we always have a wonderful time."
   Ms. Gali considers herself a colorist and admires a couple of her fellow Latvian and Russian artists who pushed the limits of color — Mark Rothko and Wassily Kandinsky.
   "I also love the artists of the Renaissance, especially Botticelli," she says. "I re-imagined his painting ‘The Birth of Venus,’ (creating) her as if she was born re-born in this century."
   The exhibit at Gallery 125 is one of Ms. Gali’s first shows.
   "When you study with a teacher, your work reflects what you have been taught and that’s what I showed in the exhibits at Artworks and the Arts Council," she says. "But the kind of work I do now is independent — it’s all my mind and my creativity."
Sizzle — The Summer Show features works by Brian Casally, Natalia Gali and many others at Gallery 125, 125 S. Warren St., Trenton, through Aug. 4; (609) 989-9119; www.gallery125.com. Brian Casally on the Web: www.myspace.com/briancasally. Natalia Gali on the Web: www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/n/natagali/