El Camino College Art Gallery to Present “Beautiful Planet: In Celebration of Nature” The El Camino College Art Gallery will present “Beautiful Planet: In Celebration of Nature” from January 20-February 12, with a reception scheduled from 7-9 p.m. January 29, 2015. The El Camino College Art Gallery is located on campus, 16007 Crenshaw Boulevard, Torrance. This exhibit illustrates the great importance of simply stopping, observing, and reveling in the extreme beauty found in nature, despite the current problems of global warming, biological species extinction, drought and more. Viewers are encouraged to take steps toward preservation of the remarkable natural environment that exists on planet Earth. The 19 artists in “Beautiful Planet” celebrate the natural world in a multiplicity of ways, including drawing, painting, photography, digital media, and poetry. Mixed media installation, relational aesthetics and neon sculpture also play a part. Elizabeth Bloom exhibits expressive portraits of her garden, signifying the diurnal shifts in Southern California light, in oil on canvas; Garrett M. Brown shows lyrical abstractions of roses, water, land and light, in acrylic on construction paper; Lorraine Bubar presents intricate paper cutouts celebrating the diversity of life forms on earth; and Lauren Evans presents a monumental wall installation with circling raku-fired ceramic cormorants. Candice Gawne shows luminous undersea life forms in neon (glass with argon gas); Ellen Giamportone exhibits two photographic images of flora demonstrating two very different ways of looking at nature; Carol Goldmark explores the metaphysical relationship between flowers and flesh in her rich oil on panel paintings and graphite drawings of decaying blooms; Robin Hinchliffe lends poetry to “Beautiful Planet,” with her haiku related to the four seasons; and Margaret Lazzari presents exuberant oil on canvas abstractions. Betsy Lohrer Hall offers an experiential piece in which she will dedicate four consecutive hours at five intervals over the duration of the exhibition to being outdoors, technology free. Each interval will focus on one of the five senses. Viewers are invited to do the same. A space within the gallery will serve as a site for display of what the artist and viewers collect, discover and produce and as a forum for exchange. In addition, Kenneth Obers rhythmic pinstripes in oil on canvas converge into fields of undulating grass; Ann Page presents a mixed media collage and 3-D rapid prototype objects; Deborah Patterson presents a dream-like photo collage; Carol Saindon exhibits elegant photomontage grid of black-and-white images of waves in water; and Anne Scheid presents a drawing in graphite and lithographic crayon, imaging the constant exchange of energy that exists between humans and the forces of the earth. Laura Stickney exhibits images of beetles, pods and bracts described in oil on repurposed Polaroid film carriers; Victoria Veedell presents small works in oil that evoke the dense fog and muted light of the San Francisco Bay Area; Pat Warner exhibits striking large-scale paper cutouts of cherry and plum trees in bloom in Japan; David Jordan Williams presents one exquisite digitally manipulated photographic image accompanied by other color photographs. The El Camino College Art Gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays and from noon to 8 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays. For more information, call curator Susanna Meiers at 310-660-3010. Admission to the El Camino College Art Gallery and gallery events is free. On-campus parking is $3.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 19:19:16 +0000