The Foster City Arts and Culture Committee is pleased to present the work of well-known Bay Area Taiwanese American artists Ecco Wang and Yu-Mei Chen at the Foster City Art Gallery. The public is invited to view their work, which is on display through September 22, 2008. The Foster City Art Gallery is located in the Foster City Recreation Center, 650 Shell Boulevard, Foster City.

Titled “Photography and Mixed Media Painting: The Works of Ecco Wang and Yu-Mei Chen,” the exhibit portrays images of flowers in sunlit spaces, establishing the impression and atmosphere of a gracious and Californian lifestyle. The style of mixed media painting has evolved from formal realism into the realm of abstraction. The exhibit features twenty gorgeous images in photograph and mixed media painting.

Ecco Wang is a trained art historian with a BA degree from Fu-Jen University of Taiwan, an MA degree from the University of Iowa and a MFA degree from Academy of Art University of San Francisco. Her works have been featured in world-wide publications such as the Art and Life in Africa CD-ROM project, the Rudolf Koppitz Catalog, the Alan Sonfist Catalog, and the African Textiles and Adornments Catalog. Her photographs also appear in catalogs printed by the Museum of African Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Encyclopedia of Sub-Saharan Art and the University Art Museum in Berkeley.

In this gallery show, Ecco challenges the status quo that dictates that the value of flowers as a subject declines the moment they show signs of age. Instead she has found decaying flowers to be quite intriguing, especially the interplay of light and texture at the macro level.

Yu-Mei Chen received her art training in Taiwan and the United States. She holds a BA degree from the Taiwanese Academy of Art and an MFA degree in Drawing and Painting from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. She teaches drawing at West Valley College in Saratoga, California and uses a wide range of media and techniques to create artwork. This exhibit features her work with encaustic paintings and ceramics, with the theme circling around flowers. Yu-Mei Chen ventures into the relationships among color, texture and form. She draws inspiration from nature and also Ikebana flower arranging, which she also practices.

The Foster City Gallery, located at 650 Shell Boulevard in Foster City, is open from 8 AM to 8 PM, Monday through Saturday. For more details about the exhibit, please contact the Foster City Recreation Center at 286-3380.