Faculty Exhibition
San Diego Mesa College Art Gallery
On view through September 28, 2016
Article by Cathy Breslaw
The faculty exhibition at San Diego Mesa College has a wide range of works including ceramics, oil and acrylic painting, installation, collage, mixed media, video, photography, photo montage, and pastel paintings. Some artists include self portraits, while others have differing intentions examining identity, interests in archaeology, statements on the status of college costs, works that stem from the ordinary and the meaning of the mundane, observation and wonder over simple things, the communicative power of objects while still others examine the many ways materials can be utilized.
John Chwekun experiments with using white on white surfaces and creates a tiny scene of a playground with wire and post-it notes. Georgia K. Laris transforms the support of paintings out of the ‘rectangle’, using acrylics on papers with cotton threads, Kraig Cavanaugh calls his works paintings but uses acrylic and wire to create 3-D sculpture-like forms that hang off the walls, and Nathan Betschart creates porcelain raku. Wendell Kling exhibits an interactive ‘camp fire’ installation along with a stop motion animation. Juan Carlos Toth exhibits a large scale red painting and offers others to add their own marks to his canvas using colored oil sticks he provides for visitors to use – encouraging free expression. If students ever wondered about all the ways art can be made, they won’t after seeing this exhibition – the possibilities are endlessly expressed with this show that are worth a visit. For more information visit http://www.sdmesa.edu/campus-life/galleries-and-attractions/mesa-college-art-gallery/
IMAGE: Allesandra Moctezuma Crushed Dreams installation of clay, mixed media