Close to Home catalogue (2011-2012)

C L O S E TO H O M E A RT FAC U LT Y F R O M M E R C E D C O L L E G E & M O D E S TO J U N I O R C O L L E G E

Merced College: Cheryl Barnett Louisa Benhissen James Brzenziski Alana Perlin Modesto Junior College: Deborah Barr-Brayman Paul Berger Tom Duchscher Richard Serros Rob Stevenson Doug Smith

C L O S E TO H O M E A RT FAC U LT Y F R O M M E R C E D C O L L E G E & M O D E S TO J U N I O R C O L L E G E University Art Gallery Department of Art College of the Arts California State University Stanislaus

150 copies printed Close to Home: Art Faculty from Merced College and Modesto Junior College University Art Gallery Department of Art College of the Arts California State University, Stanislaus March 8 - April 2, 2012

This exhibition and catalog have been funded by: Associated Students Instructionally Related Activities, California State University, Stanislaus

Copyright Š 2012 California State University, Stanislaus All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the publisher.

University Art Gallery College of the Arts California State University, Stanislaus One University Circle Turlock, CA 95382

Catalog Design: Kristina Stamper, College of the Arts, California State University, Stanislaus Catalog Printing: The Print Shop, California State University, Stanislaus

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C ON TEN TS

Director ’s Foreword

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Images, Biographies and Artist Statements .................................................... 7

Acknowledgments

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D I R EC TOR’S F OREW ORD Close to Home, show cases the talented faculty artists of Merced College and Modesto Junior College. Quite a bit of time has pasted since a show of this kind came to the University Art Gallery.

This important exhibition also gives glimpses of the amazing regional talent of the Central Valley. I am very excited about the possibilities, opportunities and interactions between the faculties and students from all of our institutions that will take place during and after this exhibition. Faculty at California State University, Stanislaus are well aware of the great instruction and learning that is provided to our current students from the other faculties. Students gain a wonderful foundation from their junior college art educations at these two premier colleges. It has been my own personal experience that Merced College and Modesto Junior College have provided me with some of the best students that I have had the privilege to work with in my many years of education.

I would like to thank the many colleagues who have been involved in presenting this exhibition; the faculty artists for the opportunity of exhibiting their indible work; California State University, Stanislaus, College of the Arts, for the catalog design; and the Print Shop for the printing of this catalog.

Great thanks are also extended to the Instructionally Related Activities Program of California State University, Stanislaus, as well as to anonymous donors for the funding of the exhibition and catalog.

Dean De Cocker, Director University Art Gallery California State University, Stanislaus

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IMAGES, BIOGRAPH I ES, AND ARTIST STATME N T S

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C H E RYL BAR NET T

BIOGRAPHY Cheryl Barnett is a local artist and instructor at Merced College where her subjects include Sculpture, Fundamentals of Design in Art, and 20th Century Art History. Her main focus is cast bronze figurative sculpture and her portfolio / resume / biography can be viewed on her webpage at www.

BarnettSculpture.com

ARTIST’S STATEMENT Abstract figurative sculpture is where my interests lie, using the lost wax bronze casting method. The human body holds such universal identification, complexity and mystery. Attitudes, emotions and spirit can be depicted through gestural form. Personal relationships, self-portrait, or popular myth hold my fascination.

I abstract by simplifying the minimal qualities of line, form and space to suggest a universal response to the figurative form. By manipulating concave and convex shapes, I create an open structural illusion to imply volume and mass. I search to capture the human essence within the folded and twisted wax that is cast into metal.

My sculptures range from small tabletop gesture studies to life-size abstractions, unique one-of-akind casts to limited edition works of seven or twelve. Numerous portfolios display between 400 and 500 works, including a small group of drawings and paintings, with the majority sold. My website represents only a small sample of this work, as I often make new bronze variations in smaller or larger scale of my favorites. Many works are now in private art collections in numerous countries: Australia, Belgium, England, France, Switzerland, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, China & the USA.

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Rain Charmer, unique cast bronze, 5’3” x 16” x 10”

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LO U IS A B EN HIS S E N ARTIST’S STATEMENT My artistic intention is to document contrasting interactions between people, which gives my work its narrative element – I enjoy letting a story unfold in my art. Travelling in my father’s native Africa and growing up in London and exploring its urban chaos and ethnic mix were what started my fascination with people: The surroundings they create for themselves and the ensuing relationship with their environment. It is an ecological study using the medium of oil paint. My subject matter is of everyday American society and culture in California suburbia – its inhabitants’ anxieties, repressed emotions and subcultures, as seen through my foreign eyes. My series, “Time on Your Hands” deals with the banal life of a gated community housewife and her activities in the confined space of a strip mallthe place of escape from social reality and its consequences. The works are as much to do with the aesthetically interesting space of the nail salon - the harshly lit artificial environment with its candy-like knick knacks - as the customer and the crew of nail technicians. I wondered if I could capture in paint the sense of time one devotes to receiving a manicure and investigate the environment and the people involved in this suburban ritual of femininity. The housewife I document represents many women today, in that she attempts to resemble an adolescent through her physical appearance and attire. This is encouraged by the tabloid magazine she reads.

The reason I chose this female type is fundamental to my work and personal: I paint the women I have always been considered to be but have never been, despite being constantly surrounded by this female type. This specific act of grooming has become commonplace in the Western world yet has been imported from the East. Amusingly, this detailed grooming has assumed the impression of a surgical procedure. The fact that during this hard pressed economic climate, Californian women are not sacrificing their manicure, as it has become a necessity, is something I find fascinating. Also interesting is the extreme contrast between the lives led by the nail technician and her sitter who are joined in a highly tactile situation for an hour or two; a break for the Californian who is usually in their own personal space (their car, home or office). Therefore the issue of containment is also central to my subject and I am using the nail salon and strip mall as a microcosm through which to make a statement about society and generational changes.

Included is a work from my new series “Service Industry”, where I followed a group of Indian women training to be nail technicians at a night class in London.

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You’re Doing It All Wrong, 2008, oil on wood panel, 24” x 16”

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J A M E S B R Z EN Z IS KI

ARTIST’S STATEMENT These paintings are about California.

The pools, spas, fountains, trees, plants, and architecture could only coexist in a climate as temperate as our own. California is where the westward march of Euro-American civilization encounters the eastward impulse of Asia. From the south comes Meso-America with its Moorish echoes and African rhythms. Rationalism, Mysticism, Passion, and Zen superimposed on a landscape that, in terms of geographic beauty and complexity, is second to none. I love painting this stuff.

These paintings are about perception.

Brushing shapes of pigment onto a surface and making an image is one of the most enduring of human inventions. Light, space, and form rendered in brushmarks examines the nature of imagemaking. Shifting the View from Above to the wall emphasizes the act of perception: that moment of recognition when the mind interprets what the eye is seeing. Also, I find this view can sometimes cause a slight sense of vertigo, an unexpected but interesting effect. When I work on these I often rotate the canvas: the aerial view having no top. So they can be shown as vertical or horizontal compositions with any of the four edges “up”.

I enjoy getting lost in the construction of these images. The Views from Above series was started in 1977 and includes hundreds of paintings, drawings, and prints. I continue to explore other directions in my work, but keep returning to these with different variations. In this group, for instance, all the images are on the same scale within long (5:9) rectangles. Although they look planned out, they are very Zen…spontaneous. There is no going back from a move, only forward. Sometimes I paint myself into a corner that I have to paint my way out of. For me, as an artist, this is when it really gets good— creating a dilemma that begs resolution.

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Pool #145, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 40” x 72”

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A L A N A PERLIN BIOGRAPHY Ms. Alana Perlin completed her MFA in Digital Arts | New Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. While in graduate school she was affiliated with the college’s Social Computing Laboratory. She graduated with her B.A. from UCLA’s Design | Media Arts department. Ms. Perlin has worked around the world as an artist, teacher, and researcher. Her past projects involve digital photography and database design for the Easter Island Statue Project in Chile and the Farfan project in northern Peru.

She currently enjoys teaching in Merced College’s art department.

ARTIST STATEMENT My artwork asks the question of what it means to translate a gallery’s temperature into imagery.

Drawing upon a diverse series of painted flowers, floral aesthetic characteristics appear in a perpetually unfolding visual sequence. The flowers’ motion suggests the underlying microchip technology that translates temperature shifts into a new means of displaying two-dimensional art.

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D E B O R A H B AR R-B RAYMAN

Art is another means of helping people see and better understand the dynamics of our world and how human consciousness impacts it at every level. My intention in my creative process is to catch attention by creating a visual dialog that the viewer can intimately identify with, and the challenge for me as an artist is to go beyond the internal barriers that separate us from each other. I paint on antique piano scrolls and antique optical eye lenses because of their quiet and delicate nature. The repetition of circles in my work refer to both a symbol of self, wholeness and totality and as a power for the way the world works. Nature moves in circles. I believe we are like the circle.....never ending. Black Elk, an Oglala Sioux holy man once said: “The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.”

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PAUL BER G ER

PHILOSOPHY I have come to believe that it is impossible to invent or tell a story, free from multiple contexts.

Exclusive of the final visual product, whether it be painting, photography or sculpture, the overriding principle behind my work is for it to function between object and image.

I attempt to find a common ground between the autonomous art object - the kind that while it can be appreciated in form or surface, it is difficult to discern what it is about - and the banal image, taking an image that is usually passed over without a thought and transcending it’s meaning.

The subject matter has always revolved around the idea of the relationship. Dynamics between couples or groups of people are motifs that surface within the work.

I feel that in today’s world we need to ascertain the role the image plays in our culture. The art object is an excellent vehicle to begin this discourse. In the end, hopefully we will all understand the possibilities assumingly vapid imagery can hold, leading to a greater understanding of what, why, and how a culture interprets the fodder used to communicate in our world.

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(left) to begin, 2010, foam, rocks, silicon carbide, paint, 9 x 12 x 12

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TO M DU C HS C HER

BIOGRAPHY Born: Fresno, CA 1949 Education: Modesto Jr. College, AA

California State University, Chico, BA, MA Standard Secondary Credential

University of Washington, MFA (sculpture) Has been teaching design, sculpture and ceramics at Modesto Jr. College for the past 30 years.

Has exhibited work throughout Northern California and the Pacific Northwest.

ARTIST STATEMENT For the past few decades my sculptures have dealt with the exploration of geometric forms. During this time I have concerned myself with the element of line in defining these forms and its ability to create both actual and illusionary phenomenon. The use of linear parallels lead to an investigation of space causing the three-dimensional forms to appear two-dimensionally from certain points of view. I am concerned with these forms in their three-dimensional existence as compared to their two-dimensional aspects and illusionistical qualities. For me, my sculptures are visual experiences in themselves and are subject to change with both the environment and the observer.

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R IC H A RD S ER ROS BIOGRAPHY Primarily an artist with a specialty in painting and drawing, I have been dedicated to these arts for over thirty years but have rarely shown my work to the public, except locally. My formal training in these areas is limited to two years at Manteca High School (graduated 1973) and a few years at Modesto Junior College (graduated 1975) working primarily in drawing and painting under Jerry Reilly; Art History under Ray Bates; and history under Tony Bedford. After visiting numerous art schools I chose not to attend one because I found that what they were teaching during that period seemed without much basis. Instead I chose to focus my academic training on the field of the History of Art with a specialty in the drawing, painting and sculpture of the Italian Renaissance period of ca. 1400 to ca. 1600 (B.A. in 1981 and PhD in 1999 from the University of California at Santa Barbara working under Dr. Peter Meller) focusing on the works of Andrea del Verrocchio and his studio [Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, Lorenzo di Credi etc.]. The art of the Baroque period and of connoisseurship was guided by Dr. Alfred Moir. I have also taken short courses in figure drawing at the University of California, Santa Cruz (1987) and at the Florence Academy in Italy (1997).

I began my tenure as professor in the Art Department at Modesto Junior College in 1987 where I was hired as professor of Art History, but have also been teaching basic drawing, life drawing and oil painting. My travels abroad have taken me to over twenty countries where I have spent about two years studying art on eleven trips.

Over the years the nature of my paintings has shifted from an optically oriented presentation of psychological and mythological images to concerns of physics and mental spaces, focusing on the relationships of color to space, and space to form. Surrealism was the initial impetus to my art, particularly the work of Salvador Dali, Because my paintings take so much time to produce only a few works are completed each year: I take my time.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT My researches in painting have always followed a type of philosophical method centered on an autobiographical journey combined with the understanding of the world around me as it has been revealed through science. My explorations of the art of the 1960s and 1970s led me to question the pedagogical methods for teaching art at the time and caused me to wonder what was at its root. This led me into art history and eventually into a deep study of the Renaissance. For the past twenty-four years I have taught drawing, art history and painting, and have learned much about the world of art. My view has been opened wide. My studies historical, scientific and political underpinnings of art have armed me with a vast body from which to cull and mix ideas. Sometimes these ideas are derived from the subjects of my study, but at other times they come to me as visions from the sub-conscious and deeper, reflecting concerns that not even I am consciously privy to, though I get glimpses that convince me of their self-reflective character.

My art has unfolded over the years from a more traditionally academic and optically realistic approach to depicting form, to one reflecting my fascinations with such areas of thought as sub-atomic particle physics (though I am no mathematician), astronomy, geology, evolution, physiology, psychology, mythology, religion and history. Until recently I have never tried to define my art through a formal style based on specific ideological parameters, but instead have chosen to approach each new work as an opportunity to explore new avenues of the visual syntax. A strong respect for the methods and modes of painting in the Western Tradition, including a the more experimental variants of the 20th century, have opened a broad vista in which I feel comfortably at play with the disparate elements, but from which I have never been committed to a particular movement or style. I have followed the path laid out in Friedrich Nietzsche’s ‘Metamorphosis’ in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, of 1885.

My works of the past few years have developed from my study of popular science on evolution, astronomy, string theory and quantum evolution. The idea that light reflects aspects of both a point and a wave, that physicists ponder dimensions billions of times smaller than the atomic structures, that physiology operates in the sub-atomic realm, that the matter of the cosmos rose from a vacuum and that space is a function of time, have led me to return to the Futurist works of the Italian artist Umberto Boccioni. His view of matter as energy expressed as radiant light depicted through discrete brush strokes has always fascinated me. I first ventured in this direction in the large painting Satyr’s Dance of 1999. The push/pull of cool verses warm colors led me to attempt to maximize the space through subtle gradations of tone. In the last few years I have explored this potential in a series of paintings based on the idea of the discrete stroke as the artistic equivalent of Max Plank’s ‘quantum’. Quantum mechanics suggests behaviors that contradict logic and order introducing randomness and chaos as agents of creation. Matter fuses with space and energy is released. Energy transforms inert matter and life arises. Ideas transform inert minds and art arises.

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Live Like Horses, 1999, acrylic on wood panel, 60� x 108�. Produced in collaboration with Leo Bretanus and Francisco Franco.

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R O B S T EVEN S ON BIOGRAPHY Robert Stevenson has been a full-time instructor at Modesto Junior College for the last ten years. He has also taught at Ohlone College in Fremont, the San Francisco Art Institute’s ACE program, Studio Arts Center International in Florence, Italy, and UC Berkeley’s DeCal program. He received his Master of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute and a Bachelor of Arts in Art Practice and Art History from the University of California at Berkeley. His work has been shown throughout the United States as well as in South America and Europe. Stevenson’s works can be found in public collections including the Morrison Library in Berkeley, CA, McNeese University in Lake Charles, LA, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, New York. He has also worked as a printer or a master printer with such noteworthy artists as Peter Voulkos, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Terry Allen.

ABOUT 50,000 WORDS “A picture is worth a thousand words.” This phrase has worked itself into the fabric of our culture, and speaks to the narrative and journalistic ability of images. Often misattributed to Confucius, the origin of the saying actually comes from an advertising campaign of the nineteen-twenties. The original advertising slogan was, ”One look is worth a thousand words”. It was developed in December of 1921 by Fred R. Bernard, who published it in Printer’s Ink to advertise the value of hiring his firm to create ads for magazines and cable cars. At that point he attributed it to a Japanese philosopher.

In 1927, Bernard brought the advertisement back, increased to “One picture is worth ten thousand words.” This time the slogan ran with what Bernard claimed was a reprint of the original Chinese proverb. The attribution of this saying to Bernard comes from The MacMillan Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Famous Phrases, which conflated the two slogans into “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Editor Burton Egbert Stevenson wrote that Bernard claimed it was “a Chinese proverb, so that people would take it seriously.” The words might have been new in the twenties, but the sentiment wasn’t, and its “truthiness” has made it an enduring common saying.

This work seeks to test whether one image is truly equivalent to one thousand words. I explored the verbal value of the image by participating in National Novel Writing Month in November of 2009. Founded in 1999, the National Novel Writing Month project has encouraged writers to take the month of November to produce a new novella of fifty thousand words or more. I began with no preconceived plot, ideas, characters, or even commitment to those images being sequential, and completed a free-write of fifty images during that thirty-day period. These images were further developed through an outline/storyboarding process and the completion of a rough draft. The final product is this entirely graphic novella. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then these fifty etchings should be worth fifty thousand.

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(left) Architecture of a Scent: just outside of Tonopah, 2010, pvc pipe, wire, silicon carbide, flock and paint, 36 x 169 x 14

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D O U G S M IT H ARTIST’S STATEMENT I photograph subjects that serve as evidence or historical reference to current times. I editorialize and even sentimentalize the subjects but try to hold onto a fine line of objectivity and social value. My previous subjects have included an extended series on traveling carnivals, the aftermath of forest fires, young family life, and everyday scenes that embody parallels to my own personal history. At times, I’ve worked by adding paint, crayon, fishing hooks, torn magazines, and other materials to photographs.

Currently, I’m making “straight” digital photographs and Holga Camera film-based photographs.

The two pieces on display in the University Gallery are from a series, Scenes From Surrendered Homes, that portray homes in the Central Valley of California where the effects of the Great Recession appear in almost all neighborhoods. While photographing these foreclosed homes, I felt a strong presence of beauty - in this case an ironic beauty - in nearly every situation. I felt compassionately for the previous resident’s experiences and their unique spaces - some kitchens, for instance, suggested a strong family life while others suggested chaos. TV rooms and hearths in different homes each had their own character, and items like devotional candles, piles of toys, backyard playgrounds, and even trash, were clues about personal interests and passions. Some owners seemed to have expressed frustration by punching out walls and doors, or destroying bathroom and kitchen sinks. In other locations, it seemed that the residents simply departed and left a feeling of profound respect for the peaceful life that previously existed there. It is my hope that this work, while being primarily an artistic study, influenced by the 1930’s Depression-Era FSA photographs, will encourage reflection and a greater understanding of the character of our times.

In reference to the nature of this exhibition, “Close to Home,” I feel that my labors as a teacher are most fulfilling in the long term even though the “high” of making art itself is probably the most engrossing and gratifying in the short term. While it is often a struggle to balance those two activities, I consider myself very fortunate to be a community college instructor of a diverse and wonderful population of students.

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TV Cable, chromogenic color print from digital file, 2’ x 3’

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AC K N OWL EDG MENTS California State University, Stanislaus

Dr. Hamid Shirvani, President Dr. James T. Strong, Provost/Vice President of Academic Affairs Mr. Daryl Joseph Moore frsa, Founding Dean, College of the Arts

Department of Art

Richard Savini, Chair, Professor Dean De Cocker, Associate Professor Jessica Gomula, Associate Professor David Olivant, Professor Gordon Senior, Professor Dr. Roxanne Robbin, Professor Dr. Staci Scheiwiller, Assistant Professor Jon Kithcart, Equipment Technician II Meg Broderick, Administrative Support Assistant II

University Art Gallery

Dean De Cocker, Director

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