CSUN Video Walk

At sundown, the art department showed its Annual Video and Digital Media Art Exhibition (in the courtyards of the Art Department), this included experimental film, video, photographic and digital compositions/video billboards. There was also a Video Festival of 20+ shorts being shown in one of the rooms. Two of my shorts made it into the Video Walk. "Place" and "Corner" both were shown. I watched the festival films and was totally inspired by the ideas and quality of the shorts being produced from all over the world.

Angles Gallery

Because Tom LaDuke would be lecturing to our class, and because he was having an opening the Sunday before the lecture, I thought it would be good to see his art in person. Besides, Samantha Fields indicated that it would be hard to understand his work purely by seeing the slides only. The monochromatic quality of the images are such that a personal experience can not be replaced. In his landscape paintings, LaDuke creates vast atmospheric voids with thin strips of land at the lower edge. Hans Burkhardt writes, "These low horizons contain an array of degraded Southern California landscape elements: crisscrossing high-tension power lines, mile-long warehouses, office parks and studio lots, thousands of pinpoint headlights. As a counterpoint to the manmade landscape, we catch an occasional glimpse of silhouetted mountain peaks and treetops. Most of the paintings are executed in military enamel on aluminum, their exquisite details precisely rendered in fine pencil and watercolor. The great skies are shrouded in smoky, matte tones of dark mocha, cocoa or gunmetal grays, representing night, fog, smog or infinite space. Reminiscent of the Northern European landscape tradition with their melancholic, engulfing voids and near abstraction, they create a portentous mood verging on the apocalyptic." He also makes sculptures out of clay that look very lifelike. I liked the juxtaposition of the sculptures and the paintings.

CSUN Student Exhibition

The student exhibition in the main Art Department gallery is once again a stunning example of the fine work being made here on campus. Two of my pieces made it into the juried show. The one pictured here is a mural photo painted with watercolor and pencil, titled, "The Towers of Babble and Deceipt."

Armenian Genocide Poster Exhibit

An exhibit of Posters about the Denial of the Armenian Genocide by the government of Turkey at Woodbury College opened today. There was supposed to be a panel discussion (I was on the panel) but that was canceled apparently because of a conflict in schedule with another Genocide panel on Darfur. The exhibit has both modern and historic posters of the Genocide. The historic posters told of the event and different campaigns to finance rescue efforts to "feed the starving Armenians".

The Getty

Yesterday I spent an afternoon at the Getty and enjoyed the work of Tim Hawkinson, PH Emerson, and the gardens surrounding the building. Hawkinson's work was represented by 4 new pieces called Zoopsia this work takes everyday household tems and turns them into "hallucinations of animals". They comprise a dragon drawn on paper, a bone structure made out of Crayola Model Magic, a bat made out of plastic bags and ties, and my favorite, a giant octopus made of photos of body parts. Another interesting piece that he has at the Getty takes up the entire main entrance, a giant sound machine made of anything you can think of from Home Depot that renders a score, much like a player piano every hour.

P.H. Emerson made "naturalistic" images of the Norfolk Broads, a rural part of England from 1885 to 1895 and is known for his stunning Albumen and photogravures. It was great to see them in person after looking at them in books for so long.

Apex Gallery

While shopping on the West Side, I stopped in to check out an on going exhibit of photographs by Paul Strand. I had always thought of his work dealing with the portraits of immigrants, but this exhibit opened my eyes to the extent of his work in the figure and in form in general.

Black Maria Gallery

On our way to a theatre production, I stopped in on an opening at the Black Maria Gallery in Atwater. The exhibit titled the "Cult of Childhood" was on display. "The dance and mix of opposing ingredients into a squeamish cocktail will turn a cringe to a grin, allowing the playful and wicked, the cute and barbaric, the poison and sweet, the vicious and curious, the child and creep to live happily in the underbelly of childhood". Though the work of many artists were on display, I found Alex Noriega's work to combine a beauty and wimsical quality to create a decoritive yet meaningful work. His drawings are about beauty and it’s overdoses. The composition of his work and use of warm colors invite the viewer in. But upon closer inspection, not so welcoming environments surface, exemplified by smokestacks, urban landscapes and robotic machines. I enjoyed the craftsmanship in the painting and was inspired to work more detailed in my own art.