San Diego Virtual Art Videos for March

by Patricia Frischer

We are gathering these videos of San Diego Visual Arts and will try to update this group for the entire month of March.

Ludicrous Tales: A Topsy Turvy Quartet at Mesa College Gallery ceramic installation by Beliz Iristay and Irene de Watteville, paintings by Gloria Muriel, and sculptures by Aida Valencia

Michelle Montjoy Live Stream Artist Talk at Lux

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Linda Litteral / Pathways - Walkthrough from Sparks Gallery on Vimeo.

Linda Litteral / Pathways - Walkthrough from Sparks Gallery on Vimeo.





Griselda Rosas  interview with Thomas DeMello from Bread and Salt


Here are some of my favorite virtual video tour of exhibitions outside of San Diego.

Leon Spilliaert at the Royal Academy in London

Griselda Rosas at Lux Art Institute until March 14th

by Patricia Frischer

Griselda Rosas  is showing her work at Lux Art Institute in Cardiff by the Sea until March 14th so there are only a few more days to catch this show. This is the largest quanity of this artist's work that I have seen at one time and that is because all this art was commissioned for this show. Bravo Lux and their new director Andrew Utt. 

Rosas gave a very charming talk about her work which gave me much greater insights not only to her process but to the layered meaning of this art.  Like most students who went back and forth across the border for some years, she has the weight of that border crossing upon her. She has also extensively researched  colonial connection to Spain through customs, art and fashion. For example, she presented a paper on the development of the ruffed collar from Queen Elizabeth 1 and Bloody Queen Ann in England to Spain and then to Mexico. 

Griselda Rosas giving her presentation at the Lux Art Institute

That is where the complication starts to form. A lover of everything beautiful, a tactile person who loves color and stitchery has to combine this with the history of her people. This history is not just the colonization of her home country but runs right up to the drug overlords and their liking for ostrich skin boots and silk Armani shirts. 

You have to look closely to see parts of all these subjects merging in the art. Sometimes images are enhanced sometimes they are covered. The resulting art is actually subtle but with the flare of hanging fringes luring you in to look closely. 

You can see more of Griselda Rosas's work in the upcoming San Diego Art Prize 2020 at Athenaeum Music & Arts Library with other finalists Alanna Airitam, Kaori Fukuyama, and  Melissa Walter from May 9 to July 3. Rosas currently also has work currently at: 

Illumination: 21st Century Interactions with Art + Science + Technology at the San Diego Art Institute until May 3. 

Oceanside Museum of Art: Sidewalk Activism, Griselda Rosas: Regata Abscisa, Artist Alliance 2019 Biennial until May 24. 

Detail of above: Notice the Armani swatch of material found by Rosas at a garage sale and the faux ostrich skin used as a background for some of these works. 

Details of above

Details of above: Bloody Queen Ann face

Details of above

Edges Frayed: Bhavna Mehta, Michelle Montjoy, Irma Sofia Poeter at Cannon Art Gallery Carlsbad

by Patricia Frischer

Edges Frayed at Cannon Art Gallery in Carlsbad with Bhavna Mehta, Irma Sophia Poeter and Michelle Montjoy with panel discussions and artists workshops through May 24th.

An interesting phenomena is occurring in more than one gallery in San Diego. We are seeing more and more women's work on display. This could be a result of so many women directors of museums, and so many new women curators. It could be all the publicity given to women rights in this Year of the Women or it could be just the sheer quality of the work that women throughout the county are producing. San Diego Art Prize 2020 at Athenaeum Music & Arts Library has an opening on Friday, May 8 from 6:30 to 8:30 and showing until Sat, July 3, 2020 has only women finalist: Alanna Airitam , Kaori Fukuyama, Griselda Rosas, and Melissa Walter. And this exhibition has three star artists (all past participants of the SD Art Prize).

What I see when I visit the Edges Frayed exhibition and also when working with the artists from the SD Art Prize is what I see whenever women come together. They want to share the space and they want a show where the sum of the parts makes a greater whole. They want to work together, talk together and then they want the art works to speak to each other. 

In the central display area that is exactly what we see. The arts by these three women is intermingling. It is easy to recognize which work is made by which artist, but there are no labels to put barriers between the works. So instead of coming away thinking that these artist were unraveling, the frayed edges are not actually the start of the end. Instead you see how this is metaphorical entrance for the works to interact. The borders are breaking down. 

All three artist offered me surprises. I have never seen the male portraits of Irma Sofia Poeter with the embroidery scabs decorating their faces. Although I have always seen the words as part of the cut paper work of Bhavna Mehta, I had never noticed the stitched poetry. This was describes to me by one viewer as "whisperings into your ear." And the biggest surprise was these delicate works by Michelle Montjoy. I was used to the strong thick yarn hanging columns, but I got little objects sewn between layers of semi-transparent material. Some of these were almost like seeing miniature people under the sheets of a bed.

I would love to hear what you think is the conversation being held between all these works so go, see the show, and send me an email, text or instagram. Patricia@sdvisualarts.net  760.492.8244 pfrischer

Bhavna Mehta

Bhavna Mehta

Bhavna Mehta

Bhavna Mehta

Bhavna Mehta: image with writing above

Irma Sofia Poeter

Michelle Montjoy

Irma Sofia Poeter

Irma Sofia Poeter

Irma Sofia Poeter

Irma Sofia Poeter

Bhavna Mehta

Bhavna Mehta, detail

Michelle Montjoy

Michelle Montjoy

Michelle Montjoy

Michelle Montjoy, detail

Christine Oatman at the Athenaeum Music and Arts Library, La Jolla

by Patricia Frischer

Lift Off! - Our race into space.

Christine Oatman's Stories of Innocence and Experience: Altered Mid-20th Century Children's Books in Pedagogic Tableaux at the Clayes Gallery  from Jan 11 to  March 7 at the Athenaeum Music and Arts Library is a show that can fool you at first glance into thinking it is nostalgic but then it overwhelms you.  At first you see a bunch of 1950's elementary school classroom displays. But what you discover is a dozen tableaux that speak of a multitude of today's concerns. 

There are many components to this creation by Christine Oatman. There are amazing altered books. There are life size cut outs of children who are rendered by Anne Reas  (a further display of her work in the Rotunda Gallery). There are additional books and memorabilia from this bygone era.There is also a sound tape in the background giving further hints of the subject matter. Each set piece is built up of all these elements making it complex and layered. For example, notice that each figure is about to have a mishap; a child is wrapped up in a fire hose, one is about to fall off a chair, another off a piles of books, one could slip on a banana peel, be bitten by a rat, be hit by a ball or is suffering from polio. Each of the many altered books needs full attention as they morph from bedtime story to nightmare. 

I only spent a couple of hours at the show and felt I had barely tapped the visual communication.  The lengthy introduction in the extremely well produced book that goes with the show is by Robert Pincus and delivers great insight.  A team of collaborators helped Oatman to construct these scene between 2009 and 2018. She is a local artist with an impressive track record. 

Anne Reas . A duck and cover little girl from the Distraction tableaux. There is also a boy scout waiting for the time to pass and the ghost of an African American boy, just barely allowed to be educated.  See the video below.

Animal Friends - Represents both animals in cages, children in playground and most currently the children taken from their families at the border crossings. 

Anne Reas 

This Thing of Darkness - References Shakespeare, William Blank and Dr. Seuss.

Anne Reas 

Heroes - The chronological loss of innocence

Anne Reas 

Subtraction - Each of the books has a lift up tab depicting an endangered animal. The chairs are in various stages of destruction and one of the balls is about to drop on this children's head.

Rachel's Easel - The subject is pollution.  The painting smock is a lead apron and the children is a cripple. 

Time is the School - 9/11 at the world trade center. This is the child, smiling but tied up in a fire hose.  

Oceanside Museum of Art: Sidewalk Activism, Griselda Rosas: Regata Abscisa, Artist Alliance 2019 Biennial

by Patricia Frischer

Morley

Sidewalk Activism- Until June 21, 2020

This dynamic show curated By Dr. G. James Daichendt captures you immediately with large scale powerful images. Taking art off the streets and putting it a museum validates it as art, It is actually serving its higher purpose when it is on the street communicating in the environment it was made for, but wow, I loved the chance to see these works up close. The Curator  is a professor of art history at Point Loma Nazarene University. Daichendt has written several books on street art and graffiti including biographies featuring Shepard Fairey, Kenny Scharf, and an upcoming 2020 publication featuring Robbie Conal. He has been dubbed Professor Street Art and regularly writes art criticism for several local and national publications. View Daichendt’s TEDx Talk on street art here.

Featured Artists: Gregory Auerbach, Bert, BRISK ONE, Celeste Byers and Aaron Glasson, Erik “ANTI” Caudillo, Robbie Conal, Brett Crawford, DYSE ONE, Shepard Fairey, David Flores, Channin Fulton, GANE ONE, Mike Giant, Kai, Christopher Konecki and Carly Ealey, Mr. KOOK, Gloria Muriel, MDMN, Morley, Persue, Plastic Jesus, Marissa Quinn, Bobby Ruiz, Katie Ruiz, Shark Toof, Bryan Snyder, Teachr, VYAL ONE, WRDSMTH

Mike Giant, Shoot Back, Original created in 2017, recreated in the Sidewalk Activism exhibition in 2020. Permanent marker, 102” x 106”.

Shepard Fairey, Noise & Lies, 2020, Paint and screen print on paper

Courtesy of Shepard Fairey / ObeyGiant.com  120” x 190”.

WRDSMTH

Robbie Conal, The Cabinet of Horrors, 2017-2019. Oil and acrylic paint on archival illustration board.

Chris Konecki and Carly Ealey, Drop in the Ocean, Created for the Sidewalk Activism exhibition in 2020. House paint, spray paint, and wood, 144” x 200”.

Plastic Jesus, American Excess, created for the Sidewalk Activism exhibition in 2020. Mixed media, 48” x 48” x 96”.

Gregory Auerbach, Street Signs, 2020. Spray paint on aluminum, 18” x 12” each.

Griselda Rosas: Regata Abscisa - Until May 24, 2020

This installation  was inspired by the novel Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea, Oceanside Public Library’s Big Read selection. The book is about lots of the issues that Rosas uses all the time in her art including colonialism and cross border migration. In Spanish, “Regata” means a water channel that hits a wall and what I see is blackened walls with the shape of a mass of water hitting the surface. Three large chunky shapes (maybe landmasses)  and connecting lines could represent the journey that happens in the book. The small tapestry work  is full of masses of textures and techniques with abstracted human shapes and landscapes  in wonderful colors. 

Griselda Rosas

Griselda Rosas

Artist Alliance 2019 Biennial - Until May 31, 2020

Juried By Bob Pincus and Maria Mingalone

This is the fourth biennial juried Artist Alliance members’ exhibition and the level of art just keeps getting higher and higher.  This museum is unique in that an integral part of OMA’s mission is supporting local and regional artists.

This exhibition features work by Dan Adams, Basia Aroyo, Antonios Aspromourgos, Warren Bakley, Suzanne Beckstrom, Neil Brooks, Diana Carey, Sandra Chanis, Emanuel Dale, Sue Dewulf, Ellen Dieter, Juan Flores, Kat Flyn, Martita Foss, Susan French, Will Gibson, John Groff, Becky Guttin, Holli Harmon, James Kendall Higgins, Kate Joiner, Bianca Juarez, Kathleen Kane-Murrell, Susan Kogan, Kurt Lightfoot, John Linthurst, Cathy Locke, Susan Lyon, Michael Maas, Dan Mcstocker, Mercedes, Andrew Meyers, Donald Mohr, Michelle Moore, Allan Morrow, Annalise Neil, Annie Omens, Kelsey Overstreet, George Papciak, Brigid Parsons, Alison Haley Paul, Carol Perry, Ilona Peteris, Ana Phelps, Ernie Pick, Karrie Ross, Catherine Ruane, Doriana Sinnett, Michael Sitaras, Cheryl Sorg, Daniel Streck, Patricia Prescott Sueme, Jane Szabo, Tokeli, Michael Ward, Brady Willmott, and Danielle Zhang.

See full details of all the artwork  here.

Brady Willmott ( Jean Lowe and Kim MacConnel

Dan Adams

Dan Adams

Cheryl Sorg

Michael Sitaras

Brady Willmott

Susan Kogan

Dan Mcstocker (these are glass!)