From India to the Planet Mars, a solo exhibition by San Francisco artist Amy Trachtenberg opens on Friday, January 4, 2013, with a reception for the artist on Saturday, January 5, from 3-5 pm. From India to the Planet Mars is a multi-media exhibition that includes paintings, wall mounted sculptures, and collages.

In her paintings, Trachtenberg stains and pours pigmented mixtures on canvas. Bleeding color through lifting, swaying, and tilting the canvas in order to move the layers with her use of improvised tools and a wide range of mediums, Trachtenberg’s process-oriented paintings mirror movement and gesture found in nature. The artist has stated about this work: "In some of the pieces I am building a geometric overlay that emerges from a process of wrestling with formality, materiality and intuition...the work does not ask to be understood or categorized with any particular meaning or theme. Despite the associations or experience that generated them, each piece follows it’s own language and logic for an open-ended reading."

Featured in From India to the Planet Mars are Trachtenberg’s wall mounted sculptures in wood that are comprised of salvaged timbers of old-growth redwood that are finely milled and polished combined with paint and found material. Trachtenberg creates a dialogue between nearly natural, unruly elements and formal abstraction.

Amy Trachtenberg has received several commissions for integrated public work including an integrated piece called Ecstatic Voyaging for the BART extension between Oakland and San José scheduled to open in 2014 and the Ashland Youth Center in collaboration with the architect Mallory Cusenbery opening in 2013.

Born in Pittsburgh, PA, in 1955, Trachtenberg studied at California State University in Sonoma, where she received her BA in French and Liberal Studies. Trachtenberg continued her studies at L'Ecole National Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris receiving her Diplôme Supérieur d'Art Plastique in Painting and Drawing. Trachtenberg has exhibited her work internationally and locally, currently at The San José Museum of Art. Her work is in public and private collections in the US and Europe. She lives and works in San Francisco. This is her fifth show with Brian Gross Fine Art.