Tehama County Arts Council

MAIN EVENT GALLERY

The Main Event Gallery is located in historic Downtown Red Bluff. Tehama County Arts Council members are proud to volunteer their time to attend the gallery.

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Main Event Gallery | 710 Main St., Red Bluff, CA 

Gallery Hours: Thursday - Saturday | 11 am - 5 pm

            Judi Forney creates art that connects with the spirit. Forney's surrealism style art, will be featured in the Main Event Gallery's September-October exhibit.  With the theme, "Personal Visions," Gallery members will be creating theirs for the exhibit.  Meet the artists at the reception Friday, September 13, 5-8 pm.

            Forney describes her art as mystical in content and says, "My style of rendering hovers between visionary and romantic. I have stayed true to my principle of creating work that is unique to my singular vision.The exhibit will include a retrospective of paintings created nearly 30 years ago along with more recent paintings. She says, "All of the work included in the show is Surreal, visionary, and spiritually based. "I plan to display my writings along with some of the paintings because I want the viewer to know the underlying meanings behind the painting."

             Forney began to study art in her twenties when she started to take Adult Education Classes at the College of San Mateo, attending at night in order to study Oil Painting, Drawing and Art History. She said,   "The knowledge I obtained from studying the lives of prominent artist’s prompted me not to follow their example, especially due to the struggle and frustration they appear to have suffered, particularly the Impressionists. I’m far more pragmatic and attached to eating and having comfort in my life, including a roof over my head, than they were. Another motivational factor for me was that art represented the one area of my life where I didn’t have to follow other people's rules, I painted what I wanted and when I wanted. “   Forney says, " I maintained my lifestyle by working in the accounting field and ultimately retired from my position as Corporate Controller for a Senior Living Corporation in the Bay Area, where I managed their accounting department staff. However, through the years I always considered myself an artist first and foremost, choosing to paint at night and on weekends whenever possible."

            Judi has exhibited her work extensively in prominent galleries throughout the Bay Area and California’s North State. Working in a variety of mediums, Forney has received many awards for her art.  She says, " The highlights for me in creating and showing my art were being accepted at the Cal Expo for two years, winning awards in oil painting at the Shasta District Fair for several years and having my paintings accepted at Redding City Hall, where they were prominently displayed in the rotunda.”