Neil Andersson and Mandi May: Spring Landscapes

Painter Neil Andersson and photographer/printmaker Mandi May are teaming up for a show of landscapes at Jeffrey Moose Gallery for April and May. A reception will held on First Friday, April 7th from 6 to 8 PM. A Livestream on the gallery Facebook page will broadcast from about 5:20- 5:40 previous to the reception. Mr. Andersson, who now resides in Lompoc, California, will attend the reception via Zoom.

Mr. Andersson, of Tacoma, also known as a jazz guitarist and the founder of Gypsy Jazz band Pearl Django, has had a long career as an Impressionist painter, painting primarily Plein Air in Washington State and his new home on the Central California coast. His style is influenced by the Impressionist Masters whose work can be seen at The Art Institute of Chicago, where Mr. Andersson received an MFA. Painting primarily in oils, and lately in pastels, he depicts pastoral scenes of farmland, parks and costal areas in small, richly colored strokes, emphasized by careful underpainting. Working out of Lompoc, Mr. Andersson is painting and helping to run a coop gallery, Gallery Los Olivos, plus acting as an officer in the Lompoc Valley Art Association.

Mandi May is a photographer/printmaker living on Bainbridge Island whose work is focused on landscape and abstractions of landscape. Her surreal photos depict unexpected layers of nature simultaneously, in ways that are incongruous yet pleasing; some information is static while other elements appear to be in motion, rippling water appearing over tree lines and flowers bloom in unexpected places. Some of her effects are done “in camera”, like double exposures, while others are achieved through the use of trick lenses, prisms or by the use of a variety of unusual material altering the field of vision. Her monoprints, too, are unusual; instead of printing with a press, Ms. May uses gelatin plates, hand-cut masks and water based inks to achieve a wide variety of textures and soft pastel colors in exploring views of the land.