CULVER CITY, CA.- The exhibit “Converging Gestures of Lines and Texture” just opened at the Helms Bakery Building, and will run through June 28, 2008. The show will be featuring the Culver City artists Lauri Burrier, Chris Hero, Dean Triolo and Alison Wright. At this exhibition, the artists will be presenting their exploration with opposing and converging line and textures through their individual mediums. The exhibit, featuring oil on canvas paintings as well as mixed media sculptures, demonstrates each artists’ ability to create artworks that interpret abstract and/or representational approaches.

Lauri Burrier was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. She has lived in Puerto Rico, Chicago, and Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Key West and Los Angeles. She studied painting at the Factory of Visual Arts in Seattle and was a film major at the San Francisco Art Institute. Lauri has exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, and Havana, Cuba. Aside from being an artist, and a strong local and international activist, Lauri is also married and a mother, residing in Venice, California. As a painter, Lauri works in a range of media including spray paint, acrylic and latex and she produces large-format digital prints.

With long vast educational achievements, Chris Hero’s paintings are as rich, and tale telling as his diverse career background. Chris has had various show exhibitions throughout the United States, most notably in New Orleans, Chicago, Ventura, and Broward Florida, and Grants Pass Oregon. A student in History, at the Loyola University of New Orleans, Chris went on to further his studies at the California State Univ. of Long Beach, where he achieved a Masters of Fine Arts. Chris has experience as a paramedic, a file clerk, a police officer, an art teacher, a stagehand, and an artist. Chris’ figurative paintings evoke a social and political conversation of the people and events that surround us. His observations of culture, society and politics play a large part of his interest in generating dialogue.

Born, raised, and studied in Los Angeles, California, Dean Triolo has established his extensive career as an artist in his native region of Southern California. Dean Triolo’s passion for painting led him to study at CSULB, and the Art Center College of Design. Dean is influenced by the passionate colors of the Italian High Renaissance and the gestured freedom of Impressionism and abstract expressionism. In his paintings, Dean captures the movements and patterns of the energy he sees and feels that surround all of us. The paintings are a beautiful congregation of the light, texture, and aura that is evoked by these moving energies we face in our daily lives.

Alison Wright was born and raised on the east coast before her family moved to Texas during a building boom, which inspired her to become an architect. Alison subsequently received a Bachelor of Science in architecture from the University of Southern California and a graduate degree in architecture from SciArc. Additionally, Alison was on the faculty of the Otis College of Art and Design as well as a student of Alexis Smith’s as a part of their Extension Program. Alison uses construction debris, barbed wire, straps, rebar and concrete for their inherent sculptural qualities. Her sculpture is a juxtaposition of nature with the modern world, mixing industrial and natural materials, highlighting their gestural qualities. Her work is a dialogue, questioning beauty, utility and purpose.