Transient Geometries at Antelope Valley College

Quintessence #10, multiple monotype and woodblock prints, with acrylic, graphite and gouache on paper, 2009. Click to enlarge.

I’ve been included in a small group show at Antelope Valley College, which was organized and curated by AVC Professor Christine Mugnolo. I’m honored and excited by my fellow exhibitors: J. Jordan Bruns, David Eddington, and Lisa C. Soto. Click here for the AVC Gallery page describing the show!

Full disclosure: I went to grad school with Christine and she was the subject of one of the shows I worked with Gillock Gallery to organize back in 2006. I wrote an essay about Christine’s drawings and Gillock published a small catalog for the exhibition containing the text and a selection of her work. I’m really proud of that entire project and hope you’ll take a look here.

Here’s one of the drawings from the show – Self Portrait on Olive Ground, Pastel on toned paper, 24 by 18 inches. Click to enlarge.

Two New Books

First off, I received my new Diebenkorn book this week. Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series is lush (in design), expansive (it contains many reproductions), and – best of all – it’s full of never before seen (in broadly-published form) paintings, prints and drawings. I’m doubly charged up by this book since I (and one of my students, Marcus Miers) are heading down to Fort Worth to see the Diebenkorn show next week!

Also, my own slim tome – 62 pages, 9 essays – just came out, published by Neoteric Art in Chicago.

It’s available in standard paperback version and in an ereader version. It should be up on Amazon in a few weeks as well.

Some New Things

My latest bit of writing, “Our Weights” is up at Neoteric Art. Check it out HERE. Above – Condition, multiple layer monotype in oil on paper, 2005.

Also, there is short and sweet review of my show at Orr Street Studios Gallery by Shea Boresi, HERE. If you’re in Columbia, Missouri, please come by the closing reception for the show on October 7th at 6pm.

And above is one of my best birthday gifts – a pair of glass tumblers, handmade by Ox-Bow awesome-lady Becky Wehmer! Thanks to my wife for getting them (a sort of end-of-Ox-Bow-decade-remembrance gift)!

Here’s a shot of the inside one of them – awesome!

“The Bell, Struck” – Tondos by Tim Lowly and Matt Ballou

I’ve got an show coming up in Louisville, KY with Tim Lowly at the 930 Art Center. Click HERE to see the 930’s website for the show. Click HERE to see a gallery of some of the work I’ll be presenting there and HERE for work from Tim. I’m really looking forward to this exhibition! If you’re going to be in the area this summer, check it out!

Above: Bells, acrylic on paper mounted on panel, 24 inches in diameter. In progress.

Craft Studio Gallery Show, Presenting Context

I’ve got an installation up at the Craft Studio Gallery of the University of Missouri in Columbia.

I proposed the show and brought in the additional artists and their works. See below for more shots of the installations and to read our group statement. Be sure to click on each artist’s name to see more of their excellent work.

The Reception will take place February 19 at 4pm. Hope you can make it. Check back here soon for some details from the installed contexts.

Work and Installation of Context by Nathan Sullivan.

Work and Installation of Context by Derek Frankhouser.

Work and Installation of Context by Sloane Snure Paullus.

Work and Installation of Context by Catherine Armbrust.

Work and Installation of Context by Marcus Miers.

Presenting Context Group Statement

Artworks are almost always presented to viewers far removed from the circumstances of their creation. The inspirations, research, sources, methods, and background information that form the basis for all artworks are usually unavailable to the audience. This amounts to a veil of mystery surrounding the finished work, masking and focusing it. Artworks appear to have simply sprung fully formed into the world, though we know this to be false. This exhibition proposes to change that – at least in some small way – by displaying singular artworks in tandem with the ephemera that lead to their creation. Alongside completed works, artists will show some background to the art: inspiring data, evocative objects, images historical and pop cultural, as well as the more traditional sketches showing trial and error. Taken together, these artifacts will serve to illuminate the experiences artists go through to process their ideas and actions into finalized pieces of art.

Exhibiting Artists

Visiting Assistant Professors Matthew Ballou and Nathan Sullivan
MU Graduate students Catherine Armbrust and Sloane Snure Paullus
MU Undergraduate students Derek Frankhouser and Marcus Miers