Oceanside Museum of Art Celebrates 4 new exhibitions

Matt Devine's sculpture Offshore in from of OMA with Director Maria Mingalone

by Patricia Frischer 

We checked out the Oceanside Museum of Art at a Virtual Exhibition Celebration produced in partnership with Oceanside Community Television (KOCT) to explore fresh artwork recently installed at the museum. We heard directly from artists and curators behind the exhibitions. You can get a taste to help prepare for visiting when the galleries reopens on April 1 or to connect from afar. The program will highlight four newly installed exhibitions at OMA and we have made a very small selection of images from all the shows on view.  

OMA director Maria Mingalone

•  Amanda Kachadoorian: Botanical Hybridity of San Diego's Multicultural History
• Kevin Vincent: Material Memory
•  Inspired: Selections From OMA Staff, Manuelita Brown, Trinh Mai, Michael Massenburg, Quinton McCurine, Carole Choucair Oueijan, Gustavo Rimada, Katie Ruiz, and Kurosh Yahyai
• Twenty Women Artists: NOW.  This last exhibition curated by Alessandra Moctezuma features artwork by Maite Benito Agahnia, Manuelita Brown, Diana Carey, Rin Colabucci, Bronle Crosby, Susan Darnall, Ellen Dieter, Theresa Vandenberg Donche, Kaori Fukuyama, Julia C R Gray, Diane Hall, Kathleen Kane-Murrell, Kathy McChesney, Lori Mitchell, Gillian Moss, Alison Haley Paul, Julia San Román-Naughton, Christine Schwimmer, Gail Titus, and Brenda York.
  
  
•  Plus Matt Devine new sculpture Offshore in front of the Museum and Wild and Beautiful sculptures in  the San Diego Botanic Gardens in Encinitas by members of the OMA Artist Alliance.

OMA Artist Alliance members at SD Botanic Gardens

 

Amanda Kachadoorian: Botanical Hybridity of San Diego's Multicultural History.  This local artist from Chula Vista researched native flora and then invents hybrid plants: part real and part surreal.

 

Kevin Vincent: Material Memory,  Vincent's mediums are wood and rope. He changes the historical trauma connotation of rope from a Black American’s perspective and tries to treat it as a life giving material. 

 

Inspired: Selections From OMA Staff, Manuelita Brown, Trinh Mai, Michael Massenburg, Quinton McCurine, Carole Choucair Oueijan, Gustavo Rimada, Katie Ruiz, and Kurosh Yahyai.  Each work in this section has a few words by the staff that choose the artist. 

Trinh Mai

Carole Choucair Oueijan

Gustavo Rimada

Katie Ruiz

Michael Massenburg

Kurosh Yahyai.

Manuelita Brown

Manuelita Brown is also included below in the TWA: NOW exhibition (see details below)

Twenty Women Artists: NOW.  This last exhibition curated by Alessandra Moctezuma features artwork by Maite Benito Agahnia, Manuelita Brown, Diana Carey, Rin Colabucci, Bronle Crosby, Susan Darnall, Ellen Dieter, Theresa Vandenberg Donche, Kaori Fukuyama, Julia C R Gray, Diane Hall, Kathleen Kane-Murrell, Kathy McChesney, Lori Mitchell, Gillian Moss, Alison Haley Paul, Julia San Román-Naughton, Christine Schwimmer, Gail Titus, and Brenda York who make up the TWA artists collective. Much of this work was made during the pandemic and reflects many of the traumas of the last year including the fires and the protest of the killing of George Floyd, but also the hope for a better future.  

Manuelita Brown

Curator Alessandra Moctezuma and Julia Grey with Julia's sculptures

 

Watch the video presentation to see more of the artwork in these four shows and to installation views. 

Lucky Number: 13 Sculptures Find Perfect Settings at San Diego Botanic Garden

Full view of Warren Bakley’s Cherub in its SDBG location (Kay Colvin)

By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt.
Photos by Maurice Hewitt, except as noted.

For over a decade, just about every spring, there’s been a sculpture exhibition installed amid the greenery at San Diego Botanic Garden.  Even a pandemic can’t undo this tradition, which this year is a collaboration between SDGB and OMA, the Oceanside Museum of Art. 

Curator Kay Colvin, former director of L Street Gallery in downtown San Diego, selected 13 works from submissions by members of OMA’s Artist Alliance. Inspired by nature, each piece was placed in a setting that would highlight its charms and add some artful sparkle to its environment.

The 37-acre Garden is an attraction in itself, a great springtime destination where you can admire the foliage as you hunt for the artworks with a map of the numbered sculptures in hand. My personal favorite is #10: Warren Bakley’s Cherub, for which Colvin found the perfect setting: it’s surrounded by boulders and situated next to a Paperbark Tree—Melaleuca linarifolia, an Eastern Australian member of the eucalyptus family—whose bark she described as looking like peeling phyllo dough. “The tree and the boulders are all about the same color as the sculpture, creating a whole composition that just works so beautifully,” she said.

Bakley, a painter, clay artist and designer who lives in Pacific Beach and has taught at SDSU and Southwestern College, has been making angel and cherub figures for some years, and recently found himself wondering: what happens to baby cherubs when they grow up? “I decided to make an old cherub for the Garden,” he said. “And I gave him a paper airplane to play with. I wanted a garden background for this piece, which would look good in a small formal garden too. I let every piece I make speak for itself, but their size is always dictated by the question: Can I lift it or not?” 

This sculpture exhibition is really a voyage of discovery. As SDBG’s President/CEO Ari Novy pointed out: “Not all of the artworks are super-conspicuous,” so part of the pleasure is discovering each piece for yourself and taking time to interact with it from various perspectives.

All COVID safety precautions are observed at SDBG, and the 13 sculptures will be on view through July. Almost all are available for sale, so if you’d like to have one in your garden, contact OMA Exhibitions Manager Katie Dolgov at oma-online.org.

 Featured Artists and Artworks
Judy Salinsky:  Mariposa and Flower (#1)
Kim Ogburn:  Jungle Jan (#2)
Larry Vogel:  Rapa Nui (#3)
Scott Bruckner:  Abstract (#4)
Dan Peragine: Heron’s Watcher (#5)
Danielle Zhang:  Balance—Wild and Beautiful (#6)
Dustin Gimbel: Turquoise Sage Trio (#7) and Black Monstrosus (#8)
Warren Bakley: Bronze Form (#9) and Cherub (#10)
William Leslie:  DNA—The Magic Molecule (#11)
Ernie Pick:  Nature’s Spiral (#12)
Marianne McGrath:  Fenced (#13)

San Diego Botanic Garden
300 Quail Gardens Dr., Encinitas, CA 92024
Open Wed-Sun, 10 am-5pm
Tickets: $10-18. Tickets must be reserved in advance at sdbgarden.org or (760) 436-3036. Be sure to request a sculpture map at the admissions booth.
View photos of all the sculptures at  https://www.sdbgarden.org/sculpture.htm 

 

Side view of Warren Bakley’s Cherub with his paper airplane (Maurice Hewitt)

SDBG President/CEO Ari Novy posed beside Marianne McGrath’s Fenced, with its cascades of porcelain leaves

William Leslie’s DNA—The Magic Molecule is, like DNA, a spiral, but a colorful one that twirls in the wind

Dustin Gimbel’s glazed ceramic Black Monstrosus, flanked by living Cacti

Danielle Zhang’s Balance—Wild and Beautiful, made of palm fronds, recycled wood and plastic rod. “It puts the Garden into the piece, not just the piece into the Garden," Ari Novy said.

Lonnie Burstein Hewitt is an award-winning author/lyricist/playwright who has written about arts and lifestyle for the La Jolla Light and other local media for over a dozen years. You can reach her at hew2@sbcglobal.net

Medium Photo Festival’s Han Nguyen. and Museum of Contemporary Art’s Glendalys Medina

By Patricia Frischer

Han Nguyen interviewed by Herein’s Elizabeth Rooklidge for 2021 Medium Festival

I have been following the work of Han Nguyen for years. He was one of our New Contemporary artists as part of the SD Art Prize .  And although I would love to see more of the work in person, I did see the Joseph Bellows exhibition and with all the new media, I love tracking new work on Instagram.  

This conversation with Elizabeth Rooklidge was so interesting because it revealed that the works are so much more complicated and so much simpler than they appear. How can that happen at the same time? I believe that is because Nguyen starts with a really simple idea. But he thinks he is not a very good photographer so he goes to great lengths to make sure the images are good. The results are more than they first appear because the technique of making them is so much more mysterious. His choices are never traditional. He will do whatever needs to be done no matter how tedious or unconventional. Because of this you get a really intimate result that is totally unique, amazingly sensitive, and 100% authentic.

The idea comes to him first. Maybe it is to explore plants in his yard or to make and photograph some small clay sculptures or to use some old negatives. Then he decides a process. It might start with a digital camera, a Pin hole one, large format, or polaroid. When the result is not what he wants he might add watercolor, tea, rite dye, or he might photoshop it.  He might have to invent a whole new technique. He did this with his collages using tiny bits of negatives all taped together using a method filmmakers use. Look close and you can see the tape lines…rather like those old films that have vertical scratches. He is a genius but prefers to think of himself as having a load of happy accidents!

Herein’s Article about Han Nguyen by scott b. davis

Glendalys Medina interviewed by Alana Hernandez as part of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego”s Charlas series.

“Glendalys Medina is an Afro-Caribbean Nuyorican conceptual interdisciplinary visual artist who was born in Puerto Rico and raised in the Bronx.” ….so it is not surprising that she is looking for an identity that she can claim as her own. And she has done just that by first researching and inventing 50 shapes to create her own personal language. By changing the position, color and grouping of these shapes she has almost an endless repertoire of designs. Printing making is a perfect medium for mirroring these images into even greater combinations. 

She makes her own paper and incorporated her bank statements into that process. Paper is age old way of creating wealth and value. And also she uses gold and of course black in many of works. Some of the most exciting results are the sculptures that have resulted from these explorations. The are detailed and unusual which is a good reflection of Medina’s personality. But what I liked most about this interview was the question about what Medina has been doing during the pandemic. She said she is trying to find joy in every day. 

The Charlas present conversations between exhibition curator Hernandez and contemporary artists where they will discuss their practice in relation to the works presented in the digital exhibition Experiments on Stone: Four Women Artists from the Tamarind Lithography Workshop.

details

Catherine Opie at San Diego Medium Photo Festival

by Patricia Frischer

The key note speaker for the Medium Photo Festival this year is Catherine Opie and she was involved in a whole day of activities with scott b. davis who is the organizer of this amazing annual set of activities for photographers. There was a student round table in the morning, the studio tour which I reported on below and then the wonderful slide lecture with question and answers. I recommend that you watch this video made by LA County Art Museum first before you proceed.

An exclusive tour for Medium Photo Festival of Catherine Opie's Los Angeles Studio

Catherine walked us through her extensive studio space and made comments and descriptions of what we were looking at all along the way. This was an incredible opportunity to feel as if you were live with her and part of the joy of this new virtual world we are living in.

Seeing her space room by room and area by area was a bit like the sequencing that she talked about in her work. Although each photo stands on its own, seen as a series it is rather like reading a page full of paragraphs. Seeing the entire body of her work then becomes a book of chapters…and you will have that opportunity this May when a new book about her appears. She found that creating, archiving, then the editing process is of interest to her after 30 years of creation. She will be 60 in April.

She spoke about the importance to her of bearing witness to each part of the history that we live through. This legacy of all your materials tells the story of your process.  She became aware of that being important because of her involvement on foundation boards. 

We got a chance to see some of her current work which she describes as unpacking the American landscape.  During her RV road trips, she photographed monuments being removed and protest marches. She captures  decisive moments, big or small in the world around her. Time and again she added symbolic meanings to the works with her words…a tree trunk where she is trying to see her roots, sunsets as bookends when the sun has not yet set on Black Lives Matter.

She discussed her process, for example, sometimes using a cell phone which makes vertical and blurred landscapes.  Portrait/vertical formats for landscape is a counter indicated conceptual idea.

We saw the chair that has been used in her studio portrait work and she likes that those type of objects become markers that are comforting when you study the whole body of her work. There is a new metal wall so that she can use magnets instead of push pins to do layouts.

Opie confided that she had to get used to taking photos with a digital camera and having her face hidden behind the equipment. So she likes to peak out. She wants a quiet studio, usually no music, for these sessions which she directs quite specifically. She aims to create a chill atmosphere and limit the portrait times to 30 to 45 minutes only.  

We see her spaces for printing, for archiving, for camera storage. She is contemplating a Cannon printer as lately Epson has not been that responsive to fine artists. And she has “branched out” to making ceramic tree stumps which you can see in the picture of the studio library.

The work on view at the Regen Projects that had to be closed to the public because of the pandemic, is a series of stop motion collages. She shared a box full of magazines cut outs, questioning if magazines will even be there for us in the future?

The Catherine Opie we saw today is excited to break rules and remain fresh and determined to make her own legacy. She is not just one boxed in person but always curious and always changing. 

scott b. davis

San Diego Art Prize 2021 Recipients Preview | RAVE San Diego

RAVE Promotion for 2021 SD Art Prize Recipients

Recipients of the 2021 SD Art Prize: Beliz Iristay, Hugo Crosthwaite, PANCA, Perry Vasquez

2021 SD Art Prize Artist Interviews

 2021 SD Art Prize launched at  RAVE | Focus San Diego.  This virtual art experience put on by the same people who bring you Art San Diego , The Redwood Art Group. You can see their work in booth #74. 

The San Diego Art Prize this year is dedicated to the memory of Larry Baza, chair of the California Arts Council and devoted supporter.

Each of these artists speak to the binational experience from very different lives lived and have worked tirelessly (or exhaustively!) to bring their creativity and passion for their art to the SD arts community!

Exhibition opens Oct. 9th-Dec. 31st at Bread & Salt and Oct 1 to oct 3 at Art San Diego 

2021 SD Art Prize Introduction by Patricia Frischer at RAVE: Focus San Diego 

• Belize Iristay is a ceramicist and mix-media artist, born in Izmir, Turkey, and lives as a “border artist” between Baja California and San Diego my first meeting with Belize she was dressed in a burka, head to toe black with just a slit for the eyes. She dresses me the same way and I was able to understand how it might feel to be a walking but anonymous thing. My friends saw me and the look in their eyes said I was an alien, even an intruder.  She uses all sort of Turkish traditional history references, blue tile colors, calligraphy and patterns. The works is attractive but political at the same time…a fine line to walk. The concepts she expresses here would not be allowed right now in Turkey

"Compulsive Obsessive is one of my favorite qualities in an artist! Sometimes these rituals are what keep us sane during a pandemic." Patricia Frischer

• Perry Vasquez’s father was born in East Chicago into a family of Mexican migrant workers. His mother was born in West Virginia, as a coal miner’s daughter. Vásquez is co-creator of the Keep on Crossin'. Driving down a highway lined with palm can be boring until you see one on fire. That takes the palm from tourist symbol to something completely different. Perry has that compulsive obsessive nature of an artist when he paints palm trees over and over.  But the works are full of change. No two are the same. Change is threatening but there is something comforting in this series even with the threat of fire. These palm trees root back to the landscapes in an earlier part of Perry’s career and that is why they are so authentic for him.
  
  
•  Hugo Crosthwaite, now an American citizen but born in Tijuana,  has that same compulsive obsessive need to fill in his quarantine diary every day and he draws, draws, draws like the ink flows from his fingers. He is expressing his pandemic thoughts through a sort of meditation process without worrying about what the work is about, but as a survival technique.  The stop animation work that comes from these diaries is not just the finished page, but many stages on the way to filling each sheet. These tiny books will eventually be filling walls like videos in a security surveillance office. We are the voyeurs in Crosthwaite’s world.  Hugo Crosthwaite was the 2019 winner of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition
  
  
• PANCA was born in Chula Vista, CA, to Mexican parents, and is an Illustrator-Painter-Muralist- Installation artist  who works with symbolism. During the pandemic, besides her own work, she has been commissioned by the New Children’s Museum to create positive, colorful, light hearted art for children. This was actually opposite to the feelings caused by the pandemic of isolation with anxiety and a dark mood, even an artist’s block.  This is an intense time of survival  for her, but she credits having to make this work for children and looking forward to seeing them at the museum for pulling her out of the worst of her despair.    

Bonus Video. Pass SD Art Prize recipients de la Torre Brothers premiered at RAVE Interview by Chi Essary