Unknown Frontiers at Techne Art Center

 by Patricia Frischer 

Jonathon Schipper 

Crash and bang are the first sounds I heard entering TECHNE Art Center for the Unknown Frontier exhibition. But this was not an accident. It was sound coming from the falling works by sculptor Jonathan Schipper. In Schipper’s world, time isn’t just the ticking of a clock—it’s a sly accomplice. He makes you watch the world fall apart… slowly, artfully, and with impeccable timing. The framed art in the center of his wall, lifts straight out of the wall, a mechanical arm emerges with a life-like finger which then rotates and upsets the other works, one by one. Is that central work of mirror image cathedrals the robot winner of the wall? Maybe or maybe Schipper just has a fondness for reminding people that time will have its way with us all.

The humor of this work, literally knocking the art off the walls, set the tone for this show and I found myself looking for humor and finding some in much of the art on display. Hurrah…beauty and humor are valuable commodities in today’s world and we need as much as we can find. 

Jonathon Schipper 

Jonathon Schipper 

Jen Hitchings creates a meditation on the age-old romance between humankind and nature—a relationship as mystical, mythological, and codependent as any doomed love affair. 

Tim Murdoch art is hand (or foot)-worked, repurposed, and lightly seasoned with humor and exists as aesthetic public mischief.

Tim Murdoch- detail

Tim Murdoch

Will Hutnick is looking through a queer, ecologically tuned lens that refuses to play nicely with binaries.

Will Hutnick

Delilah Strunkel explores imaginative micro-worlds and patterns—those hidden little universes you didn’t know were lurking inside you, like houseguests who never left. 

Frank Webster paints the natural world the way a poet might transcribe an avalanche—delicately, yet with a sense you may not get out alive. 

Kate Stone's works is perfectly timed for Halloween. A simple piece of beige carpet, but look close and it is so creepy and funny at the same time as the teeth are very similar to the pile of the rug.

Kate Stone - detail

Christopher Lin is building the future’s ruins while we’re still tripping over today’s.

Christopher Lin

David Kramer takes the chatter in his head: disclaimers, distractions, and self-deprecating jokes that elbow their way onto the surface of his hooked rugs. 

Briana Miyoko Stanley Lane has given us part memory palace, part obstacle course, and part séance for the things we’ve lost. In short, she has built a world you can walk through—though she might gently suggest you watch your step.

Briana Miyoko Stanley Lane

Hwang (Bo) Kim has dabbled in everything—drawing, assemblage, printmaking, photography—before settling down with oil paint, the way someone might finally surrender to sensible shoes. So comfortable, reliable and and you want them to last forever.

Chuck Thomas, is owner and curator of this show and it is always a thrill to see his studio open and the work on view. I find the motion and the color in his work, just pure joy. 

Unknown Frontier
TECHNE Art Center
Curated by Chuck Thomas
On view until Dec 5
Other artists featured include artists Jeff Feld, Sylvia Fernandez, Nathanael Flink, Jason Clay Lewis.
Thursday, Friday, Saturday 1-6pm
1609 Ord Way, Oceanside, CA 92056