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Northern California Art
Wolfgang Paalen & Alice Rahon, “Worlds Gone and to Come” is the first dedicated two-person exhibition of the couple’s work. It brings together two individuals whose lives and artistic paths were deeply intertwined, even as each developed a distinctive Surrealist vision.
The story at the core of “Lava Thomas: Lineage” begins with Thomas’ portrait of her great-great-great-grandfather, Charles Arthur, whose likeness she crafted from a photograph attached to a deposition. Born free to an enslaved father, Arthur had the first legal Black marriage in Wise County, Texas.
“The Tramp” makes no mystery that its artist collaborators, Caguiat Delacruz, pay tribute to Charlie Chaplin’s lovable drifter. They have created an experimental film that playfully reinterprets the character of the Tramp.
Liam Everett poetically suggests the works in “the passenger” are just “thin nets to catch the light,” indicative of his ambivalent relationship to the canvas. The title, relates to Everett’s questioning the nature of consciousness, i.e. “who is the passenger” residing in our mortal coil?
Chicago-based Gladys Nilsson paints mostly female figures captured in states of unabashed reverie, their obstreperous bodies portrayed half-way between physical solidity and ectoplasmic ecstasy. Are they grotesque? They are certainly that, but not in any way we might normally think of when considering the term.
“Objects USA” showcases the work of 61 artists working in the craft tradition, expanding and updating a historic exhibition staged under the same title in 1969 at the Smithsonian. The new show argues for a coherence between successive generations of artists drawing a line that tells us “things changed after this happened.”
In Shaghayegh Cyrous’ multimedia installation “Breathe the Sun” a vivid cast of characters perform ritualized movements in a wall-length video projection. This is an immersive, ritualistic space that acknowledges and bridges the physical and cultural distance between North America and her native Iran.
Is it possible to be nostalgic about nostalgia itself? This question is explored by Stefan Kürten and Sarah M. Newton, both haunted by the forlornness of the now, thus undercutting if not outright mocking any aspiration for a utopian future.
“Light Beneath,” draws together three decades of work highlighting Richard Sheehan’s longstanding focus on the urban landscape, particularly his two major sources of inspiration, roadway architecture and commercial signage.
An old art-world joke defines sculpture as the thing you bump into from behind as you back away to better view a painting. The mixed-media wall sculptures of Chris Dorosz turn that trope on its head: to take in the entirety of these works you must get up close to these intricately crafted figures.
