May 2, 2014 Arts for ACT Gallery Guest Artists Dale Weber, Allan Tiller and Mary-Louise Hooper

Join Arts for ACT Gallery, located at 2265 First Street in downtown Fort Myers on Friday, May 2, from 6 to 10 pm for the opening reception and art walk for our May featured artists: Mixed Media/Found Objects Artist Dale Weber, Photographer Allan Tiller and Painter Dr. Mary Louise Hooper.  This exhibit continues through June 2, 2014.  

 Dale Weber   -  Searching for the significant hidden within the insignificant, the art of Dale Weber reveals an inner beauty of the mundane. His art is a metaphoric vehicle for the overlooked, abandoned, and forgotten elements within today's society. It urges a reassessment of values in a disposable world.   Emerging as a young painter in the early 1970’s, Dale Weber was invariably drawn to subjects that bore the passage of time with a quiet dignity. In his continued quest to find the essence of age, he required a different form of expression. Eight years ago, he turned to ‘objet trouve’; the art of found objects. His 2D assemblages and 3D constructions offer a new perspective. The subject has become the medium.  Dale Weber only uses discarded materials are no longer able to serve their original purpose. For this reason, he prefers the term reinvented rather than recycled. He uses items in an ‘as found’ condition defining the natural beauty of lives well-lived. By careful selection and placement, these objects enter into dialogues expressing the artist’s views that range from social commentary to the philosophical.

“My goal is to inspire others to see the world through new eyes. Often beauty is cloaked in shabbiness. We must look beneath the surface to find the intrinsic value.  In today’s world all deserve a second look, a second chance.  Awareness is the first step of change.” ~ Dale Weber.

Allan Tiller  is a SW Florida resident and photographer by choice, having moved here from the Chesapeake Bay area in 2003. The diversity of natural beauty is a constant source of inspiration.   After a career including Illustration, teaching at The Art Institute of Philadelphia and painting, photography has become the medium of choice, largely due to the changing physical abilities brought about by Multiple Sclerosis.   He takes great pleasure in sharing his vision of the unseen details of the natural world.

Dr. Mary-Louise Biasotti Hooper is a national and international prize-winning artist, painting seascapes, landscapes, cityscapes, abstraction and still life. Her purpose is to bring viewers a moment of respite and beauty in their stressful lives by taking them away to another place.  As one buyer stares, her work is "...peaceful calming nature scenes with the ability to convert deep feelings to canvas".  Born in Greenwich Village, New York City, to an Italian immigrant family, the yearly art shows in Washington Square Park influenced her desire to paint.  Since art was not encouraged as a way to make a living, she entered the field of Education. Her art became a self-taught hobby until completing art degrees in 1999 & 2002.  Today, besides producing art, she conducts art classes and workshops for adults in all media. Influenced greatly by the work of Cezanne and de Steel, she calls much of her work "Slightly Expressionistic".  Recent innovative work ventures into abstracted images.