Over the past several months, this collective effort has relied upon the generosity of the artistic spirit, and a recognition of the important themes explored in Kevin Sloan’s paintings to create what critic, Carmine Starnino calls the “perfected expression of a sensibility in language.”
In his series, SunAthelo, (Strive Together), Douglas Turner creates sculptures that define gravity, literally, and figuratively. Gravity as a phenomena, represents a force, its effect, the only visible proof of its existence. Working from models, but also sourced images and his imagination, Turner creates convincing formations rooted in both the anatomical, and universal laws of Newtonian reason.
Argentinian artist Luciana Abait’s work has focused on the individual’s relationship between the powerful symbiotic partnership of nature and the urban world. She describes her works as “cultural landscapes” emphasizing humankind’s aggressive intrusion on nature which she hopes will bring awareness to the public on environmental concerns.
Artist David E. Weed tenders a most playful approach to re-purposing common construction materials, juxtaposing them to themes and ideas of pop culture, current politics, and consumer goods and services to draw new ideas forth. As an example, this includes using new electrical junction boxes, measure, cut, powder coat, and assembling 12 volt parts and accessories to form visually appealing interactive signs and novelties.
Nestled in the wilderness of Cleveland National Forest in Southern California, Michele Benzamin-Miki’s studio is a sunny, bright, open space. She begins all her work with meditation, bypassing the rational mind so that creative, intuitive and subconscious forces take hold. From Marina Abramovic to Yoko Ono to the Mark Rothko chapel, meditation and visual art are not an unlikely pairing.
Among the most recognizable forms of art for many, landscape paintings in their simplest form are efforts to capture and represent the natural world around us on canvas or other mediums. The beauty of our natural surroundings offers both a comfort based on our own experiences and yet provides a wide range of subject possibilities including mountains, valleys, hills, rivers, forests, and the coastline and other familiar natural settings.
It’s moments like these that remind me of the power of art to bring people together to create a place where diverse ideas are shared and people connect. This exhibition brings artists, scholars and visitors together with the goal to examine what is powerful today. This endeavor is made possible by the generosity of Larry Janss, Shawn and Letal Skelton, Margaret Fieweger and the City of Thousand Oaks.
New media art has come to describe an open-ended genre of artistic practice that utilizes newly developed media technology to produce works of art. Media is a key term here in that it implies that technology is not exterior to human experience, but is used as a tool for human communication and connection.
Data is a force and we need to understand the power it holds over us and the power we yet hold over it. To engage with data, the traces we leave behind, we must first look at how it is collected. Our first two artists in Strings look at two very different types of traces we leave in the wake of our lives.
Strings seeks to make evident the transformation of the self through its dialectical relationship with data collection, monetization and replication. The desire to taxonomize and mobilize our subjectivity through data has produced a tendency capable of simultaneously synthesizing value and obscuring it.
