The two Coastsiders, both members of an artists’ group that meets regularly locally, have teamed up to exhibit their work upstairs and downstairs at the Half Moon Bay café, and the exhibit will run through this month.
Ellis’ watercolors are characterized by rich color and an almost palpable movement that seems to pulse in the surf and water of her beach and harbor scenes.
 Eric Greenhut and Rebecca Ellis stand in La Di Da café next to examples of their art that they are displaying there during the month of December. |
Ellis had dabbled in art since childhood and earned a degree in art at San Diego State University. She creates art with a “poured paint” method, which she describes as “a challenging and exciting way to paint and one where the outcome is never certain.”
She has exhibited her work in other Peninsula venues, and infused her artistry with religion, another field long associated with art. She designed the window coverings in the Community United Methodist Church in Half Moon Bay, using a blend of fabric and plastic that resembles stained glass.
She is also working on a series of paintings of women from the Bible, which she calls her “most thrilling” undertaking to date and hopes to exhibit in area churches.
“There are so many women in the Bible whose stories don’t get told,” she said. “I think it’s important to give young women a chance to meet with women in the Bible ... I decided their stories need to be told.”
To that end she writes out the stories of the women and is targeting a readership of intermediate-school-age girls.
Painting these women is a process that Ellis begins with prayer and research into each subject, but which includes some mystery. “When I start I don’t know what I’ll end up with. It’s almost like opening up a present.”
Greenhut also became involved in art while young, as something of a rebel: When presented with picture books to color, he decided he could do it better. “I soon realized I wasn’t happy painting the colors they said (I should), so I picked colors I thought were better.”
Those turned out to be bright colors, which Greenhut mastered despite being partially colorblind. He says that reds and greens look different to him than to most viewers, but he depends on saturated hues in his work.
He took his talent for art to Colorado and Hawaii, where he had previously lived before settling in California. About five years ago he began refining his own fanciful artistic style, which reflects his own take on the reality he sees. Among his influences he cites France’s Fauve landscape art of the period 1904-1908, as well as artists Andre Derain and Henri Matisse.
He has shown work in California, Indiana, Colorado and Hawaii.
La Di Da can be reached at 712-8808.
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