The fine art exhibit “Rhythms and Reflections” featuring local artists Anil and Charlene Sawe will be on display at the Los Altos Hills Town Hall until September 2025.
Anil and Charlene Sawe are both pursuing their passion for the fine arts in their retirement years. They met almost 48 years ago in Florida, when Charlene was an educator and Anil an electrical engineer, and watching the sunrise from the beach was one of their favorite activities.
Though pursuing very different career paths, the couple always enjoyed frequent visits to museums and art galleries. After moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1980s, their favorite place for weekend excursions soon became Carmel, where they could spend long days visiting the galleries and enjoy evenings by the ocean. Twenty years ago, when the couple made the Aptos seaside their home, their art interest and activity really took off. The expansive ocean vistas were the perfect motivation for creating their own works.
Charlene enjoys creating abstract and impressionist paintings using acrylic paints. Her paintings embody fluidity and rhythmic qualities, expertly created with many diverse textural tools, and often incorporate seaside finds of shells and driftwood. Her art is an extension of movement – a visual dance of color, form and emotion. With her training in ballet and modern dance, she intuitively incorporates a sense of motion into her paintings. She loves to explore the interplay of color, texture and composition, creating pieces that evoke spontaneity, harmony and peace while radiating movement, emotion and energy.
For Anil, spending time in Aptos was a return to his roots. Growing up near the seashore in Mumbai, Anil was deeply inspired by the tropical sunsets, dramatic monsoon clouds, and the powerful energy of the turbulent seas. The vivid Monterey Bay sunsets echo the memories of his youth.
Anil has developed a distinctive style that alternates between realism and expressionism, blending techniques using both brushes and palette knives. His paintings capture the ocean’s ever-changing moods at different times of the day, from serene mornings to vibrant twilight scenes. Working with oil paints, Anil excels at capturing the essence of being near or on the water, with light and reflections that bring his scenes to life.
The Sawes’ retirement years are dedicated to pursuing their lifetime love of art and sharing their work with Bay Area art enthusiasts. Over the years, their art has been showcased at various galleries in Carmel, Palm Desert and Capitola, various Los Altos Art Club venues, as well as at art fairs throughout the Bay Area and the coast.
For this art show, the Sawes distill their unique artistic styles and subject matter into one impactful visual celebration of color and light, urging the viewer to come closer and dive into both their expression of natural movement and exciting textures on canvas.
An artists’ reception is scheduled 2-5 p.m. Sunday, June 8, at the Los Altos Hills Town Hall, 26379 Fremont Road. Admission is free; refreshments and wine will be served.
For more information, visit losaltoshills.ca.gov or call (650) 941-7222 For information on Anil and Charlene Sawe’s art, visit sawearts.com.
