ECAA Artists in the News

Filling the Bloom Projects Gallery at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum through February 8, 2009, Richard Aber presents his newest site specific installation, Shrine. Following on the sculptor’s presentation of Stupa as part of the 2008 State of the Art Gallery in downtown Santa Barbara, Shrine continues the elaboration with sculpture forms fabricated using canvas and gold paint by Aber.  Drawing upon an array of complex, resonate ideas and sources, Aber explore fundamental tenets of culture and beliefs through his minimalist forms and alternative construction methods.  Organized by CAF Director and Chief Curator, Miki Garcia Shrine, in her words, “evokes notions of sanctity, greed and power.”

New graphite and silverpoint drawings by Susan Manchester are on view at the Monterey Museum of Art through February 22, 2009.  The exhibition is organized by MMoA Chief Curator Marcelle Polednik and is intended as recognition of Manchester’s accomplishments as an artist residing in the Monterey County. Featuring more than dozen new works, the exhibition features both drawings of figures and botanical subjects.  Polednik states, “… the exhibition encompasses a variety of subjects and a range of materials, tracing a more complete picture of the artist’s practice. In doing so, it also highlights an underlying theme – time as an agent of transformation.”

A selection of photographs from Thomas Zika’s Bathers series was recently featured by Klara Jung of the Kunstverein Wiesbaden, Germany in the Fall issue of the UK’s Next Level magazine. London’s avant-garde Kilimanjaro Magazine will feature photographs from Zika’s Human Factor series.

George Legrady’s current installation project, We Are Stardust, is being featured at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California in an exhibition entitled, Observe, in collaboration with the NASA Spitzer Science Center. Legrady was also featured in an exhibition entitled, China in Transition for Stiftung Ahlers Pro Arte in Hanover, Germany.

Gary Lang’s work is currently being exhibited at the Crisp Museum, Southeast Missouri State University. The solo exhibition entitled, Gary Lang: Out Standing Time, will focus on works created during the past five years since the artist’s move from New York to California. To accompany the exhibition will be a fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by David Pagel, Los Angeles Times art critic and chair of the Art Department at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California, and an introduction by Dr. Stanley Grand, director of the Crisp Museum.

After a recent solo exhibition, entitled Cecilia Paredes:The Final Garden at Michela Rizzo in Venice, Italy, the artist was honored with the International Artist Guest Award the FIA Ibero American Art Fair in Caracas. The Ibero-American art fair in Caracas is held yearly since 1992, always with an artist as a guest of honor. Cecilia will have three spaces to exhibit her photo performance works and one site specific installation specially made for FIA. In previous FIA editions, international guests artists have included Jaume Plensa, Patrick Hamilton, Fernando de Szyszlo, Vic Muniz, Guillermo Kuitca, Marcos Lopez and Luis Gonzales Palma, among others.

This week Photolucida announced their Critical Mass 2007 Book Award Winners. Joni Sternbach was awarded best Hardbound book for her project "SurfLand.” Critical Mass is an annual juried competition sponsored by Photolucida. The aim of Critical Mass and all Photolucida programming is to promote the best emerging and mid-career artists working today.

Works by Rick Stich, Thomas Zika, and R. Nelson Parrish are to be included in an exhibition entitled, Surf-Inspired, at the Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard, California. The exhibition will feature paintings, photographs, and sculptures by California artists creatively inspired by the ocean. The show is on view from June 7 - August 24, 2008 at the Carnegie Art Museum.

Recently, two pieces by Susan Manchester were accepted for inclusion in the permanent collection of the Achenback Foundation for Graphic Arts at the California Palace Legion of Honor in San Francisco, California. The first to be acquired was a conte figure drawing and the second is one of Manchester’s .925 silverpoint botanical drawing. Adapting Old Master techniques, Manchester explores the concept of botanical illustration through the ancient art of silverpoint drawing. Silverpoint, sometimes referred to as “point d’argent” or “punto d’argento,” is an arcane drawing method dating from the 12th century.  A silver wire is used to draw a variety of line and tone on a receptive surface that has been prepared with gesso and Chinese white watercolor. Rather than sitting on the paper surface, the silver line incises the surface, resembling an etched line. Silverpoint drawing has been said to be the bridge between etching and drawing. The appeal of a silverpoint drawing is in the oxidation of the .925 (sterling) silver.  As it tarnishes, the drawing continues to develop richness and depth for at least six months after the drawing. Manchester’s work represents an aesthetic triumph balancing technique and form.

Featured in not just one but two group exhibitions simultaneously, the photographic work of Ethan Turpin is currently on display at the Elverhoj Museum in Solvang and at the Contemporary Arts Forum in Santa Barbara. On the Edge: A New Generation of Artists from the Santa Ynez Valley features Turpin’s Buzzard Hill: Summer Solstice on Ballard Fields Ranch. The large format photographic collage presents an inventive self-portrait of the artist, which visually connects the valley’s pastoral summer landscape and the artist to the celestial occurrence. Dynamically marking both time and location, the photograph is one of a series of self-portraits that the artist takes annually. In contrast, Turpin explores themes of globalism with his new photographic project, Stereocollision.  Selected by jury from a pool of more than one-hundred artists, Turpin’s work is one of five artists featured in True Metier: Call for Entries 2006-7 now on view though November 4, 2007. Using digital manipulation and compositing techniques, Turpin manipulates period stereo card views, reinventing this nineteenth-century technology to create low-tech, hyper realities that plumb political and economic tumult and ideology. His project takes the form of a Victorian parlor, which radically subverts the gallery’s purity and invites long, leisurely explorations of the three-dimensional world Turpin has created.

Santa Barbara has long had a reputation as a “photographic town” and now the works of more than forty-five distinguished artists are currently installed in the galleries of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.  Organized by Karen Sinsheimer and Rita A. Ferri, Made in Santa Barbara: Contemporary Photographs will reveal surprises and treasures and remain on view though October 7, 2007.  The exhibition includes a stunning large-format, pigment print photograph and collage by ECAA artist Mary Heebner form her ethereal Khmer Face project.  Also included in the exhibition is dynamically generated computer visualization installed in the Emmons Gallery by George Legrady. And, last but not least, a rare folio of hand manipulated silver-gelatin prints entitled Pictures/Stories by Gerald Incandela who is currently preparing for an upcoming solo exhibition with ECAA in October of 2007.


Also on view currently in Santa Barbara is: Sonotube® Forms: Contemporary Art and Transport at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum.  In this exhibition, the sonotube, a staple in any gallery, artist studio, or museum storage space, is used as a central motif to address the way portability, economy, and ease have become essential factors in the growing expediency and itinerant art world of traveling exhibitions, international art fairs, biennales, and so forth.  Featuring 35 artists from around the world, the exhibition features works by ECAA artists Robert Heckes and Peter Cole.  Cole speaks of his motivation for Dark Star Souvenir as, “Like the crazy guy on your block who never throws anything away, a lonely traveler amassing souvenirs, or an artist collating and redistributing experience, I have taken the trope of collecting to an extreme.  As they mount each other in a thicker pile, the objects necessarily fold themselves in order to occupy the inner form/empty space of the tube. This condensed mass is like an imploded star, now- useless objects and circumstances transfixed or immobilized by their combined gravities.”  Sharing a similar passion of collecting gone wrong, Heckes’ large-format collage painting, Sundowner is made from thousands of vintage playing cards utilizing the vintage feeling patterns and logos to create a expressionistic depiction of Las Vegas – a city of excess and commoditization. 


Transforming the striking Dudelange steelworks in Luxenbourg for through August 19, 2007 is an exhibition entitled De L'Europe organized by the Centre National de l'audiovisuel featuring the work of Thomas Zika and twenty-four other photographers gathered from Europe and the Americas.  The prestigious curated exhibition features artists that hail from a diverse range of backgrounds, cultures and sensibilities, and it is the diversity of their view regarding Europe and its citizens that constitutes the character of the works presented. Accompanied by a catalog, the exhibition explores Europe’s development at the turn of the century.  To learn more please visit: http://www.cna.public.lu/2_PHOTO/index.html


A new sculpture/painting hybrid by R. Nelson Parrish has been selected for High 5: Emerging Art in America for the CW Network in Burbank, CA.  Reflecting the national TV network’s, 18-34 demographic, the exhibition features only emerging artists between those ages.  Selecting outstanding example of artwork from five different geographic areas, the five nationally recognized curators are Kristan Kenney of PICA, Portland, OR; Matthew Higgs of White Columns, New York; Regine Basha of Arthouse, Austin, TX; Ben Heywood of the Soap Factory, Minneapolis and Katherine Kanjo of UAM, Santa Barbara, CA.  Each curator selected five emerging artists for inclusion in the exhibition.  Noted LA Times critic David Pagel is contributing an essay for the soon to be published catalog, and will be selecting one artwork from each geographic area for inclusion in the CW Network’s permanent collection. 

An example of the Exposures series by Davis Birks has been added to the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.  The work was vetted by noted curator of photography, Anne Tucker. With Exposures, Birks explores the boundaries between photography and painting with his innovative reverse painting technique that confounds viewers with their taunt surface and strong suggestions of ranking light.  www.mfah.org.


A large format drawing by Ann Diener has been selected for inclusion in an exhibition entitled Art on Paper 2006 at the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, NC.  The biennale presentation of works on or made from paper showcases more than one-hindered unique works by both emerging and established American artists, and has become a benchmark exhibition.  Curated this year by Zandra Eden, the exhibition represents a forty year partnership between the Weatherspoon Art Museum and paper manufacture XPEDX to recognize outstanding efforts in drawing and paper based arts.  To learn more visit, http://weatherspoon.uncg.edu/exhibitions/exh_detailf.asp?WamExID=84


New paintings by David Florimbi premiered at Frank Pictures Gallery in Santa Monica, CA in September.  The show entitled, Forces of Nature, featured paintings which continued the artist’s exploration of the concepts of originals and copies in an age of mass media.  Utilizing photographs of moving images of surfing, car racing, and horse racing on television as a basis for his paintings, Florimbi presents serial images that consider motion and power.  “In my latest series,” Florimbi states, “I’ve used Muybridge’s revolutionary photographs as a departure point, and using paint, photography, and film, tried to capture the myriad of unseen moments that occur inside the briefest flash in time.”  To see a review visit, www.davidflorimbi.com/press/laartistseries.html


Joan Tanner: On Tenderhooks, a fifty-five page catalog has been published to accompany an exhibition of the same name by the Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles.  With introductory essay by Ben Maltz Gallery director, Meg Linton and an analysis of Tanner’s twenty five year career by Michael Darling, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Seattle Art Museum, the catalog also features an interview with the artist by Julien Robson, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Speed Art Musuem in Louisville, Kentucky.  The richly illustrated catalog documents the two-year process of creation of the monumental sculpture installation by the artist that was on view July 22 to September 23, 2006 at the Ben Maltz Gallery.  With a notice by Peter Frank and a forthcoming review in Sculpture Magazine, the exhibition furthers the recognition of Tanner as an important conceptual artist working in Southern California investigating the visual paradox of architectonic order and themes of disintergration and imperfection. Comprised of temporary and salvaged materials, Tanner’s large-format sculptures are as heroic as they are precarious.  The exhibition’s name underscores the strain contained in moments of transition and contradiction, yet, Tanner compositions are visual follies which, in Linton’s words, “are metaphors for seeking perfection and the inability to attain it.”  Catalogs are available from ECAA and Ben Maltz Gallery.  To read Peter Frank’s notice visit: http://www.laweekly.com/art+books/art-pick/joan- tanner/14436/


Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo of Lead Pencil Studio assembled a full-scale architectural double of the Maryhill Museum of Art made entirely out of scaffolding and construction netting. Maryhill Double, a Creative Capital funded project, was built on private ranch land one mile due South of its namesake and across the deep chasm of the Columbia River Gorge. The 6,000 square foot temporary monument resided in the stark Oregon grassland for three months located ninety minutes east of Portland. Attendees were able to transpose themselves mentally from the original museum enclosure to its double and back again in a contemplative exercise that focuses attention on the intangibles of contained space, scale perception, land use, authorship and institutional history.  Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo are a Seattle- based collaborative team who explore the intangible conditions of architecture at full scale by employing lightweight construction materials.  They were selected as an Emerging Voice in 2006 by the Architecture League of New York, completed residencies at the Center for Land Use Interpretation and the Headlands Center for the Arts and have been awarded numerous grants.  To learn more visit, www.leadpencilstudio.com


Mani Wall and A Sacred Geography is on exhibit at the UCLA Fowler Museum of Art.  The Mani Wall project is the result of a creative collaboration by artist Mary Heebner, her husband, photographer Macduff Everton, and their anthropologist daughter, Sienna Craig, who, in 1996, let them on horseback to the walled Kingdom of Lo in Nepal's Mustang District. Inspired by the rugged landscape of the region and the walls of painted boulders etched with Tibetan prayers (mani), the exhibition includes Heebner's recent paintings on paper; Everton's panoramic photographs of Nepal and Tibet; and a display of twelve pulp-painted folios that feature Craig's sonnets, in Heebner's limited edition artist's book, A Sacred Geography: Sonnets of the Himalaya and Tibet.  Mani Wall and A Sacred Geography is presented in conjunction with the debut of a major, traveling exhibition The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama. Both exhibitions will be on view through September 10, 2006.


Seattle born and Puerto Vallarta based artist, Davis Birks has been invited to the Vermont Studio Center Residency Program for the Fall 2006.  Founded by artists in 1984, the Vermont Studio Center is the largest and most international residency program for artists and writers in the United States.  To learn more, please visit: www.vermontstudiocenter.org.  Additionally, Birks’ was represented by Charro Negro Gallery of Guadalajara, Mexico at ScopeHamptons Art Fair July 14-16, 2006. His work is currently featured in an exhibition entitled, Artistas Citados at Nina Menocal Gallery in Mexico City.


The prints of Roy Lichtenstein are currently featured in an informative exhibition at the Henry Art Museum, Seattle, Washington from February though May 2006. Entitled, Roy Lichtenstein Prints 1956-97, From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, the exhibition is organized by Chris Bruce of the Museum of Art/Washington State University.  Accompanying the exhibition is a publication of the same title with contributing essays by Chris Bruce, Dave Hickey, and Elizabeth A. Brown.  An edition of Still Life with Portrait, featured above, is included in the exhibition and catalog, for which Elizabeth Brown writes, “the head is limned in a particular style, one you might find in those ubiquitous saddle-stiched recipe brochures from the 1950s sent out by Betty Crocker Foods and Good Housekeeping magazines. This is the way everyone thought (thinks) Lichtenstein drew in the 1960s, but he never did.”  To learn more visit: www.henryart.org