La Jolla Shines - Carlos Castro Arias: The Splinter in the Eye, Olivia Obrecht: Organic Ornament, Gail Roberts; Natural Selection; Frank Gillette: The Symbiotic Blues

 by Patricia Frischer

Carlos Castro Arias

I cruised through La Jolla one Friday afternoon and was refreshed and stimulated by the variety of exhibitions on view. 

Carlos Castro Arias: The Splinter in the Eye at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library

Oddly enough, it was only looking at the photos that I took of the show at the Athenaeum that I realized the deeper connection of the erected scaffolding that holds the works of art and works their way into the actual images of Carlos Castro Arias. It would be a mistake to disregard the relationship between the two while you are viewing. I think that is why the title of the show, The Splinter in the Eye is so meaningful. This quote from Luke 6. 41-46: Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own?

You see a combination of images from the past and from nature and from the present as Arias continues with his exploration of power struggles both individual and collectively. Don’t miss the bird peacefully perched between two works or the severed head of the missionary Junipero Serro which was recently reported like many statues of famous men in dispute.

Please visit this show in the afternoon if you can see the full force of the reflected light from the traditional windows that gives an other worldly glow to the exhibition because of the transparent colors attached. 

Please note: Carlos Castro Arias was a SD Art Prize recipient in 2022.  

Carlos Castro Arias: The Splinter in the Eye at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library
Showing until Jan 11, 2025
Tuesday–Saturday: 10 AM–5:30 PM
1008 Wall Street, La Jolla, CA 92037
858-454-5872  info@ljathenaeum.org

Carlos Castro Arias

Carlos Castro Arias

Carlos Castro Arias

Carlos Castro Arias

Carlos Castro Arias

Carlos Castro Arias

Carlos Castro Arias

Carlos Castro Arias, detail

Carlos Castro Arias

Carlos Castro Arias: The Splinter in the Eye at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library
Showing until Jan 11, 2025
Tuesday–Saturday: 10 AM–5:30 PM
1008 Wall Street, La Jolla, CA 92037
858-454-5872  info@ljathenaeum.org

Olivia Obrecht: Organic Ornament at Thumbprint Gallery

If you have not discovered this tiny gallery tucked into the back of a set of shop off of Kline Street, then make an effort to check it out. On First Fridays in La Jolla, this space is known as the after party stop as it is open until 9 pm. They are currently showing Japanese influenced designs by Olivia Obrecht. It is not surprise that she is also a tattoo artist. Thumbprint shows contemporary pop culture, nostalgia, urban art, and pop surrealism. 

Olivia Obrecht

Olivia Obrecht

Olivia Obrecht

Olivia Obrecht

Olivia Obrecht

Olivia Obrecht 

Olivia Obrecht: Organic Ornament at Thumbprint Gallery
Nov 1 – 30, 2024
Saturday and Sunday, Noon - 4pm and by appointment
920 Kline Street, La Jolla, CA 92037
858-354-6294  thumbprintgallery@gmail.com

Gail Roberts; Natural Selection at Quint Gallery

This is an additional exhibition to the one Gail Roberts has in 2021 called Color Field which we saw at the Oceanside Museum of Art and covered in our Picked RAW blog.  But these glorious images are composites of a variety of flowers. They are realistic but surrealistic at the same time because each individual panel is a true flower. Because of her vast research , the sum of the parts makes a greater whole.  

Roberts says: “The paintings are not meant to be ominous, rather a reaffirmation of my continued sense of wonder in the unending variations in nature’s patterns, colors, and shapes. As time passes, I have an even greater sense of urgency in valuing every precious moment, knowing I am just a blip in Earth’s lifetime radar.”

Please note: Gail Robert was a SD Art Prize recipient in 2010

Gail Roberts

Gail Roberts

Gail Roberts 

Gail Roberts: Natural Selection at Quint Gallery
Showing until Dec 7
Tuesday - Saturday 11am-5pm
7722 Girard Avenue, La Jolla, 92037
858.454.3409  info@quintgallery.com

Frank Gillette: The Symbiotic Blues at Level of Service Not required

First, let us clear up the name of this relatively new gallery space on Ivanhoe. LOS/NR stands for Level of Service Not Required which is a medical insurance term. There are five levels, but this is the notation when no service is required. Yes, it is three doctors that direct this space.

When you walk in the gallery space the lights are low and there are three sets of three screen with changing images. You have to slow down and even sit and then this  experience can be a prescription for relaxation and meditation. You see images of the ocean, stunning flowers, trees with canopies of leaves and then you start to notice the mirrors. Mirrors are reflecting the scenery but then, rocks are thrown that break the reflections and you see shards and rain and images are over laid on other images. But there is no flashing or strobing, so it is all revealed in a random but soothing fashion.

Gillette with Ira Schneider is one of the first to produce an art video back in 1968.  The is the world premiere of a 9-channel production. Photographed on Long Island and the show is organized by David A. Ross, the former Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Frank Gillette

Frank Gillette

Frank Gillette

Frank Gillette: The Symbiotic Blues at Level of Service Not required
Curated by David a. Ross former Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art until
Dec 5, 2024
Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 12 - 4 pm 
7910 Ivanhoe Ave, La Jolla, CA 92037

If you walk between the Athenaeum and Thumbprint Gallery, go by way of Drury Lane to see a hidden mural by Rosson Crow. It is not really on Silverado, but around the corner on Drury Lane. Titled Ocean Front Property in Arizona, 2022, this is part of the Mural of La Jolla project.

Rosson Crow, Murals of La Jolla

The Mexicali Experience at Bread and Salt

by Patricia Frischer

 Pastizal Zamudio

Michael Krichman, executive director of INSITE, was kind enough to pull me into the latest workings of his organization. Andrea Torreblanca’s essay about how she met Pastizal Zamudio and commissioned him to do a work intrigued me. Pastizal Zamudio (a nomadic artist with  seemingly many names) grew up in the building yard of what was part of an amazing experiment in Mexicali. His fantasy archeological dig into his memories has produced a number of objects on display at the new exhibition at Bread and Salt, The Mexicali Experience Project.  

To better understand the exhibition, a time line might be helpful.

1903: Mexicali was founded as a sister city to Calexico to take advantage of natural resources
Mid-1960’s: US companies set up maquiladores or manufacturing center
1975: the Mexicali experiment started to offer affordable housing to workers. Architect Christopher Alexander was invited to lecture, but stayed to help build a housing project
1976: Only five of the homes were built before the times changed and track homes came into vogue. Peter Bosselmann's drawing were created to assist workers. 
1977: A Pattern Language was written by Alexander, not an instruction manual, but a philosophy of life;  A set of design elements and rules for their use much like a  word language is used to write paragraphs.
1984: Dorit Fromm and Peter Bosselman, both students of Alexander revisited the site which was closed off.
early 1990: Mario Vargus was allowed by the University of Baja Norte to live in the site for 10 years with his family and Pastizal Zumudio.
2006: The complex was re-opened as a health center and University Center for the Community
2022: Zamudio was commissioned by INSITE
2024: Hooper was commissioned by INSITE

Pastizal Zamudio’s work, Before the Last Rubble, inthe Face of Dawn (2038), explores the builders’ yard which was really more of an experimental place where the eventually owners and students tried to craft and assemble and test some of Alexander’s ideas. The builders were the owners and so one of Alexander big new concepts was to let them influence how they would be living in the spaces. The yard was conceived to eventually become a community center for the complex.

When Zamudio returned to the site for this project, after his father’s death,  the  room that was his parent’s bedroom was a hospital ward. Zamudio’s project concentrated on the central courtyard where he removed the cement and replaced it with more than one hundred clay stones molded with their bare hands.

Peter Bosselmann returned to Mexicali seven years later after the five houses were completed. He said, “It might make some architects uncomfortable that their work is being changed... When it was first finished, the housing there didn’t have the same quality of integration that it has now. Now it has reached a level of ordinariness that is better integrated into life and makes me very happy. This is the quality that is my real goal.”

The whole exhibition takes you through a history of this period. It has examples of the symbols used in A Pattern Language. It creates a mood of the 1960, hippie movement and Habitat for Humanities which we remember vividly. It has never before displayed story board like drawings  by Peter Bosselman, an installation by Pastizal Zamudio, and a selection of drawing of what you can see if you were to visit the site of the Mexicali Experiment today by Cynthia Hooper. There are also original photographic archives by Howard Davis, Dorit Fromm, Peter Bosselmann, and the Christopher Alexander Center for Environmental Structure Archive.

Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language

 

Christopher Alexander 

Peter C. Bosselmann

Peter C. Bosselmann, detail

Pastizal Zamudio

Pastizal Zamudio

Pastizal Zamudio

Cynthia Hooper

Cynthia Hooper

Cynthia Hooper

Cynthia Hooper

The Mexicali ExperienceProject at Bread and Salt
Curated by Andrea Torreblanca in collaboration with Felipe Orensanz
INSITE Commonplaces The Sedimentary Effect A Timeless Way of Building Exhibition
Nov 9, 2024 to Feb 15, 2025
Tuesday - Saturday: 11am - 4pm
1955 Julian Ave, San Diego, CA

Please note: This exhibition is also part of World Design Capitol SD/TJ

Vicki Walsh: Animals to Limbs at Sip Art Space

by Patricia Frischer

Vicki Walsh: Heard detail

We know that Vicki Walsh is a highly skilled draftsperson. She did medical illustration for years and her detailed portraits are tour de forces of control that go deep into the psychology of the sitter. This is not the first time she has shifted subject matter, but this set of art works has an unusual start. She is teaching a course at Palomar College, and using oil-based ink and pen…what we a call a ball point pen, but a none smear artist quality version…not necessarily expensive, but still special.

The series starts with a rain storm over the ocean, when set the format (8” by 26.5”)  for all the works. It is followed with an image a sheep in tall grass, and one image her student found of a bear in the woods.  Those animals beget a crowd of mammals running. We leave the reason for the stampede to your imagination. This is when things start to turn a bit darker. While watching a murder mystery on TV, an amputated limb was covered with a sheet and bang, Walsh was back in her medical illustration mode. It was a short jump to a seahorse spilled out of a glass of water and a tiny father figure with a huge hand.

Fantasy and reality, innocence and irony, light and dark, all inform these narratives from childhood dreams to adult nightmares.  

Vicki Walsh: The Calm and the Storm

Vicki Walsh: Black and Blue

Vicki Walsh: Baumumaemer

Vicki Walsh: Heard

Vicki Walsh: Cover Up

Vicki Walsh: Spilled Life

 Vicki Walsh: Father Figure

 Vicki Walsh self portrait

Walsh has built a passionate community of students who continually return to her classes, engaging with each other and the broader art world through shows, events, and exhibitions. Her studio has blossomed into a vibrant center for creativity, fostering not only technical skills but a deep sense of camaraderie and commitment to the arts within the local community. To read more about Vicki Walsh and Sip art Space see the North County Arts Network profile.

 Vicki Walsh: Animals to Limbs at SIP art Space
Nov 4 to Dec 13
215 S. Pacific Street, #104, San Marco, 92078
By appointment only 858-336-6678 vicki@SIPartSpace.com

 

San Diego Visual Arts Network presents the SD Art Prize at San Diego History Center

by Patricia Frischer

Gallery View

Gallery View

SD Art Prize 2024 presented by San Diego Visual Arts Network
at San Diego History Center, Balboa Park
Gabriel Boils, Francisco Eme, Marisol Rendón
Thurs. Oct 24, 2024 to Sun. March 30, 2025
Curated by Dr. Lara Bullock, Senior Civic Art Manager, City of San Diego

We hope you will be as lucky as we were to see this amazing exhibition with very few people in the space, as that is when it shines. At the opening it was crowded with a very large attendance of VIPs and art supporters to congratulate the artists and organizers in the 17^th year of the SD Art Prize 2024. This was the first time the prize exhibition was held in Balboa Park.  It will be up for five months giving, not only our local art lovers, but more national and international visitors  a chance to see what excellence in the arts looks like in San Diego. 

Gallery View

 Francisco Eme, Marisol Rendón, Gabriel Boils 
2024 SD Art Prize recipients

You first might be drawn to the slight breeze, soft wind chimes, and a small pond. A video of birds diving creates not only a background, but can also be seen reflected as they seem to skim over the mirror like surface of the water. Francisco Eme is one of the three recipients and they all made installations of new work this year, another first.  The show overall creates a series of puzzles and Eme gives clues in the wall text, which is very important to read this year. Rain of Birds poses the questions:  Is this a “mass exodus of bird silhouettes diving, or worse, falling from the sky”. Do you believe birds are a sign of hope or an omen of doom? Is the sound of a bell, an angel getting its wings or a death toll?  But most important is the meditative quality of this work that gifts you with the time and space to think of these questions. 

Francisco Eme

Francisco Eme

All of the works in this show have a connection to the climate crisis and the challenges that brings to our environment.  The puzzle master himself is Gabriel Boils. Two of his works on view have actual puzzle pieces. The Sun Flowers deconstructs a 1000-piece version of Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers from 1888, rearranging the works according to colors with yellows reaching upward and blues falling downward. The flow of this work is like a sound wave and if you stand in the middle of the piece and take a selfie, it could be butterfly winds. Did you know that Van Gogh's work has been repeatedly threatened by an eco-awareness group as an attention getter?

In Coral Reef Ghosts #3, Boils turns his attention to the oceans affected by temperature change. The chilly blue of this work reminds you of undersea life, but the work actually turned blue as that is what happens when a full color print is exposed to too much sunlight. Ornament and Storm, which resides overhead, is almost a stained-glass window of puzzled together pieces that represent hurricanes, thunderstorms and tsunamis. The artist has hand outlined each perfectly placed color section.  Hands are a central theme of this work, reaching across the space reminding us like Michelangelo’s famous ceiling illustrating God creating Adam, that man must respect nature. 

Gabriel Boils, Ornament and Storm

Gabriel Boils, Coral Reef Ghost #3

Gabriel Boils, The Sunflowers

Gabriel Boils, The Sunflowers, detail

Marisol Rendón presents Five Acts of Reconciliation in Searching for What is Not Lost. In 2008, worn remnants from the facade of the 1926 original San Diego Museum of Art were stored away. Rendón has borrowed those actual fragments and incorporated them (puzzle-like) within her original sculptural shapes. Those sculptures and a drawing have then been “painted” with mold which was allow to flourish creating almost lacy arabesque shapes on the surface. In one work, a partial column, beautifully lighted, also has a projection of ants busily eating away at the bottom of the structure. Frightening and funny at the same time, especially at this Day of the Dead time of year.

Marisol Rendón, Searching for What is Not Lost: Five Acts of Reconciliation 

Marisol Rendón

Marisol Rendón

Marisol Rendón

Marisol Rendón

Stochastic Elegies: Transcendence, Nature and Eternity is the title given to this show by curator Dr. Lara Bullock. Her careful placement of all the works, creates a harmony and gives space and life to the displayed art. She sees universal themes that unite the work including the impact we have on nature and on each other. Stochastic basically means random and in this context refers to the hits and misses that we make as we stagger towards the future. The San Diego History Center has a mission to present the past, present and future of our lived existence and this year’s San Diego Art Prize displays all three with authenticity and visual stimuli.  

Dr. Lara Bullock

The SD Art Prize recipients bonding!

We acknowledge and thank all those who made the prize possible this year: To the SD History Center  Leilani Alontaga Caithness, Tina Zarpour and Jeremy Prince with thanks to the center for sharing the cost of the ArtForum ad (another first) and the lovely opening buffet. To the SD Art Prize Committee and donors: Alessandra Moctezuma, Eloisa Haudenschild and INSITE, Felica Shaw and Art Matters, Jonathon Glus and City of SD Commission for Arts and Culture, Debra Poteet, Erika Torri and special thanks to The Seth Sprague Foundation for funding our national selectors and all the other donors including Dion Frischer, Alan Ziter, Lisa Croner, Naimeh Woodward, Philip Beaumont  and David Ruecker.

Selectors:
Lucía Sanromán, Director, Laboratorio de Arte Alameda, Mexico City and Curator at Large Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
Silvia Karman Cubina , Executive Director, The Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach
Carmen Hermo, Associate Curator, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art

A free catalog will be available at the SD History Center and online in late November.
Writer for this year's SD Art Prize 2024 catalog:
Chelsea Behle Fralick, Art Historian, Writer, Lecturer, University of San Diego, for Francisco Eme
Derrick R. Cartwright, Director of University Galleries at the University of San Diego, Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Timkin Museum,  for Marisol Rendón
Carlos E. Palacios, Independent curator, Lecturer, for Gabriel Boils

Read full SDVAN  press release

Yes, that’s me, Patricia Frischer... so proud to be the presenter for the last 17^th years of the SD Art Prize. I am inviting you all to the San Diego Visual Arts Network Annual 2024 Holiday Potluck Lunch on Tuesday, Dec 10, 11 am to 2 pm. Please bring: One dish or drinks for 8 to share. Help us celebrate Doug Diamond Day (it his birthday!) Jewelry and Accessories for our swap exchange. For details go to www.sdvan.net and sign up for our monthly newsletter 

SD Art Prize 2024 presented by San Diego Visual Arts Network

Gabriel Boils, Francisco Eme, Marisol Rendón
San Diego History Center, Balboa Park
Thurs. Oct 24, 2024 to Sun March 30, 2025
Curated by Dr. Lara Bullock, Senior Civic Art Manager, City of San Diego

San Diego History Center
1649 El Prado, Suite #3
San Diego, CA 92101
info@sandiegohistory.org
619-232-6203
Wednesday through Sunday, 10am – 5pm