Visual Art Program

Color, the very essence of art, is a subjective language to both speak and listen to. Michaela Meeter and Nicole Statham held their Senior shows in the same location at the same time and managed to have two distinct voices intermingle within the gallery. Both utilizing color and similar shaped surfaces, the colors spoke to the interiors of each respective artist.

Michaela Meeter focused on the roots of color by channeling both her inner second generation abstract expressionist and color field history. Her works remained untitled as to not influence the viewer into one emotion over the other. The colors themselves balance both on the brink of harmony (Untitled #2* and #3*) and as showcased by Untitled #1* complete disarray.

*(numbers added by the author for clarification and labeling purposes alone)

Untitled #2 (above) riffs between the chilling deep Dioxanine purple and brilliant cadmium yellow, letting the viewer teeter on the edge of both colors. Their proximity heightens the drama found in the piece and one feels torn between the emotions of excitement (found in the yellow) and contemplation (the purple). Moving down the row of paintings, Untitled #3 (pictured below) invokes wholly one emotion – a serenity infused by the mint greens playing off the light cerulean hues.

The pieces Michaela assembled on the right most wall of the gallery line up like framed emotions and the viewer wanders down the line in an easy fashion. It is when the viewer comes to Untitled #1 (pictured below) that the viewer must reassess the technique employed for taking in the art. It stands tall and mounts against the wall on unprimed canvas, the edges furling away in an incomplete status. Michaela welcomes the comparison to Helen Frankenthaler’s “soak stain” technique and use of unprimed canvas. Here the viewer finds the visual representation of Michaela’s only stated emotion, and the name of her senior show, enoument.

John Koenig coined the term for “the bittersweetness of having arrived in the future, seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self.” In Untitled #1, this sense of regret and purposefulness is easily expressed through the intense and jarring color juxtapositions hastily applied in broad strokes. It counters the subdued color harmonies found on the wall to the right of it. In this piece all the emotions are combined and the only thing missing is the viewer to create an emotion like that of Meeter in her fabrication of enoument.

As Meeter transitioned her paintings in equally spaced and sized installments without the bias of emotion, she stood across the room from Statham’s stance on the same subject. Using color as her means of communication, Statham took the viewer through an emotional color wheel, starting first with the deep purples and blues and then highlighting in intensity as they met in the middle with brilliant reds. Each of the names corresponded with the emotion Statham felt emanated from the hue.

If Meeter sought to destroy bias, Nicole cultivated it, inviting the viewer into a temporary dwelling. The all white washed furniture was a muted foreground for the viewer to experience a feeling of home, yet the distinct emptiness that comes with realizing it isn’t. The viewer stands in the middle of the furniture staring passed the white into the vibrant hues that swirled into each other (see above).

Humility (pictured above) sits above a white desk. The light ultramarine swirls into the Prussian blue and peppers out with mint greens and interspersed Naples yellow highlights. The colors combine in a fluid fashion, no doubt from her unique application technique and the high sheen from the surface, but also against the muted backdrop. It is with these dull notes the paintings come most alive and the use of an all white setup draws the viewer into the paintings and feed into her claim found in her artist statement: “This external ordinary dwelling shapes every emotion, creating [an] internal dwelling. There is a connection here like no other.”

Intentional or not, Statham’s pieces flowed well into Meeter’s and the two connected on both the subjectivity of color and implied emotion.

Regina Jacobson’s show A Beautiful Lie will run until March 5th. A closing reception will be held in the downtown CBU gallery (3737 Main St #101, Riverside, CA 92501) from 6-9 pm.

Below is the Gallery statement by Duncan Simcoe, Professor of Visual Arts.

Regina Jacobson’s masterful paintings occupy a provocative niche in contemporary art.

Working out of a neo-Realist tradition, she constructs symbolic fields of images, which verge on being Allegorical in that theological/mythological and literary imagery is framed within a language infused with the desire to tell stories.

These works draw from her own history of mother-daughter dynamics, a childhood love of literature and years of working experience in the fashion industry. The resulting works are charged critiques of cultural mandates about acceptable bodies/faces and sexualized behaviors for young women, matched with poignant evocations of the ‘sad girl’ phenomena; interior universes constructed as a mythic forest in which the isolated psyche wanders, prone to narcissism or self-discovery, depending on which path you take! Interestingly, as in the Garden, a male God wanders here too, but communion comes off as another kind of demand, and she ends up wondering, like the old 3^rd c. exegete, Origen, about just what Christ meant when he said you need to “pluck out your eye” (?), or in Ms. Jacobson’s case, pull off your arm (Can You Hear Me Now?).

The show has been covered by American Art Collector as well as Explore CBU. Jacobson is

More of her work can be seen here: http://reginajacobson.com/

Julianna Anderson’s (2015 CBU Visual Art Graduate) senior show Anonymous Memories ran the month of December in the CBU Downtown Art Gallery. Anonymous Memories could be described in one word: cerebral. Playing with memories real and imagined, Anderson provided two separate forms for the viewer to identify with.

The first form suspended from the ceiling, touching the ground with weighted elegance. Different jewel toned string fastened photographs at shoulder height. Anderson utilized embroidery as a chance to collaborate with the photographer, threading the actual photo with a tactile element. When questioned about this technique, and whether or not a viewer could touch it, she encouraged that kind of response. After all, Anderson herself had repurposed the photos. “These memories will never be my own [but] I decided to make them my own by changing aspects of each photo.” In this sense, the viewer is invited to experience her new memory.

These new memories play out like the ones we carry from our childhood. Black and white they stand still in our mind until the moment grabs us again, drawing us into the experience with vivid color. Anderson’s string takes the viewer along a tactile path back into her brain and our own.

Pointing at Boy With Red Tie she beamed as if it were her own brother.

“He is so proud. I have a bunch of his family photos.” The red tie pops against the fading black and white photograph. Staring at the photo one begins to question whether or not the memory actually occurred to them but is forced to move on as the intense proximity of the other photographs makes the eye jump laterally. Down the row the eye walks a familiar path that has never been traversed, déjà vu running rampant in the gallery space.

Stepping back from the stringed photographs, they resemble bars and prohibit the viewer from touching the second form of memories in Anonymous Memories. Behind this string curtain a wood collage hangs off of the wall. Various blocks assembled in a wooden 3D Piet Mondrian configuration held black and white forms. Stepping closer one sees that interspersed amongst the wood blocks sit rubber brains in gradation from white to black. The literal gray matter sprawls out against the wall but the ones that stick out the most are charcoal black. It is here the viewer catches what Anderson meant in her artist statement by “some see[ing] it as the aging of the mind from birth to decay or ignorance to enlightenment.”

On the wall the memories cease to be playful and blur the lines like steps in gradating grays – the artist has drawn her line in the sand. Not all memories are ones we wish to experience together but they do make us who we are.

Julianna Anderson provided the kind of experience that makes you remember why you are you and then love her for it all the more. The viewer leaves the gallery holding onto both images of the show and the memories previously carried into the exhibition.

Julianna Anderson can be found online via instagram at @julimakesstuff.

The following are photos from the CAVAD Art show “Unlikely Visitors”. The show ran at the Riverside downtown CAVAD Art gallery from late August to early October. All pieces showcased are from faculty within the College of Architecture, Visuals Arts and Design.

“Unlikely Visitors” showcased the recent work of the current faculty. The pieces, as seen above, were as varied as the participants themselves. The energy from each piece seemed to play off each other, mixing from sculpture to painted canvas to interactive experience. All combined the show had a lasting impact on those in attendance.

Full write up on the show can be seen here.