reception will be HELD ON saturday, september 10, 2005

LOS ANGELES, CA – Gallery owners David Freire and Juan Garcia will open doors to Silverlake’s exclusive new art gallery, Metro Gallery. The 1,500 square-foot gallery, one of the largest in Silverlake, will feature a combination of contemporary art as well as well-known fine art from around the globe. A grand opening reception will be held on Saturday, September 10, 2005, from 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm, and will showcase the “Vistas de Soledad” (Visions of Solitude) exhibit, featuring more than 30 original paintings by Diana Best and Mary Austin-Klein. Renowned for their landscape paintings of various California landscapes, Diane Best and Mary Austin-Klein will display their most recent works of various Southern California desert landscapes.

Diane Best is a former entertainment commercial artist. She is best known for her moody, evocative desert landscapes – depicting her new residential surroundings near Joshua Tree State Park in California. “As business became more and more computerized, my interests shifted to focusing on the surrounding landscape with all its inherent drama and spatial vastness,” she explains.

Passionate about promoting the beauty of fragile environments, Mary Austin-Klein is motivated to protect these vistas through art. “My compositions express the tension felt underneath the landforms,” describes Austin-Klein of her work. “The presence of Teutonic force is in the brooding skies, the rich colors, and looming mountains which are key elements in my paintings.”

“Metro Gallery is very proud to feature the artwork of Mary and Diane. They are well-respected artists that have captured the essence of the desert environment through their works,” says Freire. “Their perspectives: hypnotic and isolated, resonate the desert experience unique to their style and talent.” The “Vistas de Soledad” exhibit will continue through October 7, 2005.

Metro Gallery is a full service art-dealing gallery located at 1835 Hyperion Avenue in Silverlake, CA 90027. For more information on this exhibit grand opening and upcoming exhibits, contact the gallery at (213) 591-5826 or visit http://www.metrogallery.org.

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