The region is so rich in arts activities in coming days that the musical events are highlighted in Wednesday’s Arts Blog, and we will touch on the visual arts in this blog entry.
One of the highlights on campus is a visit Saturday by Jock Reynolds, an MFA graduate, who will talk about his art mentor, Manuel Neri, one of the “first-generation” art faculty at UC Davis. Reynolds has published a catalog of a recent exhibit of Neri’s work at Yale, which Reynolds curated. In the book he has written a very personal essay beginning with his life as a student at UC Santa Cruz, when he first came to “know” Neri through another art teacher, and then really met him. He later served as Neri's teaching assistant while obtaining his MFA at UC Davis. His talk is Saturday, 2-3:30 p.m. at the Manetti Shrem Museum. Details in this arts blog story.
Speaking of art faculty, current Professor/sculptor Annabeth Rosen has been getting plenty of press on her exhibitions, including on the cover of Sculpture Magazine. Read the details here.
Below, we highlight some of the events this weekend. Get the facts on some ongoing exhibitions in last week’s Weekender Blog.
Beldner and Briscoe display art from discarded items in their Sacramento exhibition
An exhibition by Lynn Beldner and Steve Briscoe, local artists who create sculpture from everyday and discarded items, will be showing March 7 through March 31 at artSpace 1616 in Sacramento.
Exhibition At A Glance
- artSpace 1616 gallery is open Thursday through Saturday, March 9, noon. to 6 p.m, and Sunday noon to 3 p.m. Admission is free for everyone.
- The opening is Saturday, March 9 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
- For more information visit here.
The exhibition features Briscoe’s: Slantsticks. Briscoe is a former preparator at the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis.
Briscoe describes his exhibit:
The art I have been making over the last ten years or so is sculpture created from cast off elements like reclaimed lumber, household items and hardware from garage sales. In assembling these things, I am repairing a breach in the universe.
By reusing things, I am saving a space or finding a home for things that have become lost. Not everything I use is old but it is available within reach.
My feeling is that if there are only two things in your studio, you ought to be able to figure out how they go together to create something. I try to bring everything I have learned over the last 35 years to the next piece. I often fail and have to relearn techniques and materials, but that is okay. Whether it is learning 100 new things or the same thing 100 times, I just have to keep working.
Also on display is Lynn Beldner artistic interpretation of instability and life.
This is her statement:
My work is diaristic and immediate, utilizing domestic processes in order to respond to the world around me. incorporate sewing and drawing often combining fabric, paper and delicate objects to respond to an event, an idea or something that has just happened. All manner of things are unsettled or unstable in this world. I am a collector of discarded, broken, or unnoticed objects and how they reflect on the precarious nature of life. Reinventing objects from everyday recognizable things allows others to connect with my work. They are transformed into everyday objects of beauty and visual comfort.
Limited Edition Prints in Anima Mundi at Pence
Deirdre Sullivan-Beeman: Anima Mundi is on view through March 31 at Pence Gallery in Davis. She is known for magic realism and an egg tempura technique.
Anima Mundi At a Glance
- Opening reception Friday, March 8, 6-9 p.m.
- Gallery open Tuesday through Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
- More informationhere.
In Sullivan-Beeman’s show statement, she said, “The anima mundi (world soul) is an inherent correspondence between all living things on the planet. The anima mundi relates to our physical world in the same way the human soul associates with the physical human body. These works are a menagerie of the little pieces of me that go into each of my characters and narratives – our shared anima mundi.”
Anima Mundi will feature 10 new, limited edition signed prints, all executed on Moab Entrada 290gsm archival Cotton Rag; printed from her original works painted in the time-intensive medium of egg tempera for which Sullivan-Beeman is known.
Deirdre Sullivan-Beeman is a self-taught figurative and contemporary surrealist painter who integrates modified oil and egg tempera techniques of the 14th century Old Masters and the genre of magic realism. Celebrating the hard-earned wisdom of childhood, Sullivan-Beeman depicts subjects who are often young, hauntingly innocent, and teetering on the edge of naïveté. She uses her personal dream journal to inspire her artwork, exploring Jung’s collective unconscious with an overt curiosity for the bizarre and the esoteric, especially alchemy and the tarot. She is based in Los Angeles and Vancouver, British Columbia.
Ongoing UC Davis Exhibitions
- C.N. Gorman Museum: Comings and Goings: Works on Paper by Rick Bartow through March 15.
- Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art: Bruce Nauman: Blue and Yellow Corridor through April 14, and Xicanx Futurity, co-curated by Chicana and Chicano studies faculty Carlos Jackson and Susy Zepeda through May 5.
- UC Davis Design Museum: Weaving and Woodwork: A Scandinavian Design Partnership on display through April 21.