San Diego Art Prize 2015 at Art San Diego Contemporary Art Show

  By Patricia Frischer

San Diego Art Prize 2015 at Art San Diego Contemporary Art Show . 
November 5-8, 2015Booths #300 and #400, Balboa Park Activity Center, 2145 Park Boulevard, San Diego 92101
  
Wendy Maruyama with emerging artist Peter Scheidt and Roy McMakin with emerging artist Kevin Inman.
 
The 2015 SD Art Prize Catalog is available for a free download and has Art Notes by Tara Centybear, Curator at San Diego History Center, freelance Curator for the La Jolla Historical Society, Artist, and Teacher at MiraCosta College Mark Murphy, curator/ publisher/designer Murphy Design, Ginger Porcella, Executive Director, San Diego Art Institute, and Alex Zaragoza, freelance arts and culture writer 

We were privileged to have two booth at the art show again this year which featured the SD Art Prize recipients.

Peter Scheidt

• Scheidt is taking found furniture which might be machine made and bringing it back to be worked on my hand. In this case adding storage. You can see the hand made marks. His preference is for Hand tools and used wood.
• Mark Murphy says about Scheidt. “Designing an heirloom piece is actually a political act in 2015.”  He is interested in the Maker Movement and how it will affect the survival of a craft industry.
• His newest project takes a 1957 bread truck/stepvan and turns it into a mobile furniture wood shop. Just like the food truck concept, this takes the art of repair right to the people.
• Shaker chairs were hung on the wall for storage, and this (like in the Roy McMakin piece Use/Used) allows us to see them as artworks.

Wendy Maruyama

• Angered by the senseless killing of a protected lion who was lured out of the park and then shot by trophy hunter Walter Palmer, she made this piece call Requiem in silent remembrance for all animals killed for this senseless sport.   Just a few weeks later, a significant and large bull elephant was killed by German trophy hunter.
• Maruyama is concerned with the problem of wildlife poaching and the need for wildlife preservation in these two works. Her work is passionate as she visited these areas in Africa and saw first hand what is happening.
• The string in the untitled elephant piece ties the slats of wood together, but there is still the possibility of movement. It is abstract but as soon as you know it is about elephants it reads clearly as that.

Roy McMakin

• Use/Used: In this work McMakin found a children stool which is weathered and transformed it into art just by putting it on the wall. Below the works sits a duplicate stool that he manufactured and is covered in fresh clean matching paint. His idea is that this new stool will be used in life and gather scars, stains and a patina of wear and will become a new used part of the art work. This is a post modernist work with conceptual roots.
• The 6 untitled drawings are part of a large number of drawings. They are NOT studies for his sculptures. But McMakin has always made drawings for things he see around him. These drawing are skillfully rendered just like the immaculate construction of his sculpture/furniture.
• The mentorship between Roy and Kevin is very interesting. Roy’s works are tight and specific. Kevin’s works are looser but both men works with an intense intension.

Kevin Inman

• Inman came from an art history background of abstract painting.
• He now paints in antithesis of romantic landscape (which is seeing a revival right now) His landscapes come more from the abstract tradition
• He arrived in SD in 2009 and his images start a story which he is discovering about SD.
• Inman is most interested in the impact of humans on the environment He does not have message – not pro or con
• He sees this urban landscape as a recording of the infrastructure of daily life.  Covers on homes to rid Termites, trash cans and dumpsters, a new trail in an old park.. Even our own Balboa Park is mainly man-made. 
• His titles are very important to the work to record clues about the relationship.

The Timeline Project [META.MORPHOSIS]: SAN DIEGO'S EVOLVING ART LANDSCAPE The Timeline Project will depict a retrospective of the past and present San Diego Art Prize recipients.  The 120′ x 8′ wall will be built by ECOR Noble Environmental Design, with the graphic design created by students from the Media Design School of Digital Arts at NewSchool of Architecture & Design.

You can see the whole booth that Sergott Contemporary Art Alliance presented with this link to their catalog.  You can see works by Deanne Sabeck, Beliz Irslay, Becky Guttin, De la Torre Brothers, Hill and Stump, Hung Vet Nguyen, Marianela de la Hoz and many more. 

Here is a selection of works from other booths. The first set is all from the Cuban booths Conde Contemporary

Raiman Rodriguez Moya

Luis Enrique Toledo de Rio

Darian Rodriquez Mederos

Anthony Ardavin from Miami

The following images are from the Valencia Gallery who hosted the New Contemporaries exhibition for SDVAN this year.

Alvaro Blancarte and Aida Valencia (sculpture)

Aida Valencia

Aida Valencia detail of sculpture

Alejanddra Phelts from Valencia Gallery

Pablo Picasso ceramics from Masterworks Fine Art

Boris Guillan. A large carved work with eyes that glowed bright and dull. Very eery and beautifully presented if a little slick.

Stephanie Bedwell from the Mesa College Booth with SDAI artists

Stephanie Bedwell

Udin Kuru at David Alan Collections on Cedros in Solano Beach

Kim Niehans from the Art Produce Booth

Daphne Hill at Art Produce Gallery

Jesus Villalpardo from  Estudio Libertao

How could I not end with the business card holder. Some poor artist is rolling over in hisher grave.