inez  Storer   July 30 - september 12, 2004   Reception: Friday, July 30, from 7:00 to 9:00pm   Artist Talk: Thursday, August 5 at 7:00pm Personal narrative figures prominently in Inez Storer’s paintings. She describes her own aesthetic process as a method of uncovering buried histories. One of the most important of these histories for Storer’s work is her Jewish identity. Storer was raised as a Catholic, and the details of her German-Jewish past were not revealed to her until her mother was dying. As a result of her unique upbringing, iconography from both religious traditions often coexist within Storer’s work. References to Russian folk art within her works allude to the influence of her husband, Russian artist Andrew Romanov, who is a grand nephew of a Russian czar. In addition, Storer’s paintings often depict narratives that unfold against the allusion of a theatrical backdrop—a direct reference to her father, who was an aviator and later an art director for Paramount Studios in Hollywood. "For more than four decades, Storer has pursued her own uniquely personal and idiosyncratic style of figuration,” said Karen Kienzle, curator of exhibits and collections for the de Saisset Museum of Santa Clara University in California, where Storer had the first retrospective of her work. “Storer’s delightfully accessible works are rich in content, addressing universal themes of identity, spirituality, imagination, and history.” Storer uses the figure, gathered fragments of text, iconic metaphors and the use of symbolic images to define personal narratives. Her paintings refer to impossible acts of bravery with allusions to the mysterious nature of individual fate and fortune (or misfortune). Often there is an allusion to relationships between the figures which can also be precarious as if on a tightrope – a sort of psychological dilemma. In fact, there can be a darker interpretation that takes the work to a deeper level; there is often an underlying possibility of danger, such as falling, drowning or unbalance – an emotional precariousness.