ArtZone 461 Gallery - LandsCApes - Glimpses of Everyday California - de Saisset Museum - Santa Clara University

LandsCApes

Glimpses of Everyday California

TEL: 415.441.8680

DE SAISSET MUSEUM, Santa Clara, CA

October 2 - December 5, 2010

January 15 - 28, 2011

THE ARTISTS

ArtZone 461 is proud to announce that five of our artists are included in the Museum Exhibition LandsCApes: Glimpses of Everyday California, on view at the de Saisset Museum at Santa Clara University.

Curator, Lindsey Kouvaris, comments:

We live in a fast-paced world... We frequently rush through our days, focused on the tasks at hand or the desire to reach our final destination. Although we see the world around us, we often forget to really look—to notice the way new development alters a landscape. The artists in this exhibition dare to slow down, to examine their surroundings, and to give shape to the sites of everyday California.

Through the eyes of these artists, landscape becomes much more than pristine wilderness; it includes industrial sites, city views, seascapes, congested highways, and endless stretches of farmland. The works depict California's landscape as the embodiment of awe and wonder, the forward march of growth and progress; and sometimes a site of conflict—the collision between humans and nature.

Though initially insterested in abstraction, Randy Beckelheimer shifted his focus to figurative painting more than a decade ago. Inspired by the urban landscapes around him -HPS 4 depicts a view from the artist’s studio at Hunters Point- Beckelheimer creates what he calls “ evidence of the desolate landscape.” His current work is rooted in photography -each piece begins with a photographic image- yet speaks to his interests in Color Field painting through his studied rendering of color and light.

Nicholas Coley’s paintings of San Francisco are bold and expressionistic, at once embracing and challenging the traditional art education he received in the South of France. Now living in the Bay Area, Coley has traded in conventional compositions for a looser, more intuitive style. In this painting the broad expanse of Front Street becomes the focus of attention, as the details of the urban scene are pushed to the periphery.

Coley’s style of painting, which combines broad, gestural brushstrokes with heightened blocks of color, accentuates the composition by allowing spaces to blendd abstractly into one another. Painted on location in busy parking lots and beside major throughfares, his images reflect the hustle and bustle of the environments in which they were created.

Using digital images and video stills, Heidi McDowell distills her memories of sites along the California coast into enigmatic paintings of deserted landscapes and dilapidated buildings. Form a distance, works such as Central Valley Field appear almost photographic, but upon closer inspection the artist’s hand is evident in the painterly lines and rich layers of color.

Though the completed work is reminiscent of the place that inspired it, McDowell’s rendering never appears as a faithful replica. She provides just enough detail to create a distinct sense of place, but never divulges too much information. Instead, her work remains open to interpretation. leaving the viewer free to supply his or her own explanation.

Berkeley-based painter Ryan Reynolds finds inspiration in the everyday sites of the Bay Area. Working in the neighborhoods around his home, Reynolds focuses attention on the perpetual transformation of the urban cityscape. In his paintings, the often overlooked signs of development -cranes, cones zones, and industrial sites- take center stage. As he states, " I paint the places between point A and point B, places that usually blur on the way to doing something."

Painted on location, Reynolds' images are rife with visual contrasts. In Red Crane, a quite neighborhood is transformed by a giraffe-like steel crane, while in Presidio Construction, the presence of orange barricades and heavy equipment highlights the unrelenting march of progress.

Ryan Reynolds is a Lecturer in the Department of Art and Art History at Santa Clara University.

Commentary by: Lindsey Kouvaris

Curator of Exhibits and Collections