The Classical View

“The Classical View” will consist of botanical paintings and nudes by Lisa Prosek, and watercolors of the Sonoma Mendocino landscape by Thomas Prosek. The many decades of experience that Lisa and Tom accumulated as professional illustrators, instructors and artists unify their styles and philosophies. The exhibit is set for the Elaine Jacob Foyer and opens with a reception Friday, January 4. The exhibit will continue through Sunday, January 27. The body of work will include large watercolors, charcoal drawings, pastels and oil paintings.

Lisa’s background includes work as a Botanical Illustrator at Harvard University in the mid-1970s, before completing her BA at Princeton University in 1981. After Princeton she continued working as an illustrator before completing her MA in Architecture at the University of Washington in 1992. During the 1990s Lisa was an instructor at Academy of Art, San Francisco, and at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (also in San Francisco). These days Lisa is composer at Scolavox, opera and vocal Composition and production.

Tom Prosek, a native of Prague, Czech Republic, and the son of a renowned Czech architect and painter, graduated from the Czech Technical University with a Master’s degree in Architecture and Structural Engineering. At this Bauhaus-modeled school, he studied drawing, painting, sculpture, industrial and graphic design, architecture and urbanism. After immigrating to the United States, via Italy and Canada, Thomas began working as an architectural illustrator in Kansas City, Seattle, and San Francisco, becoming one of the premiere architectural illustrators in the United States. He’s taught illustration and perspective at the Art Academy in San Francisco and Highline College in Seattle. He designed, built and painted numerous stage sets.

Thomas adds “. . . Living more than twenty years on Seaview Ridge, just above Fort Ross, gave me the great opportunity to start painting dramatic local landscapes. This amazing and inspirational place, where the San Andreas Fault meets the Pacific Ocean, is dividing at least half of my interest with painting American and European cityscapes. All pigments in my watercolors are absolutely light fast, on Arches 400 pound handmade paper and painted in the classical manner with “divine geometry” composition.”