Local look: chico
MUSINGS ON THE CHICO ART SCENE
Back when we were installing this exhibition at the end of July, I felt as though I had reached several limits regarding isolation due to the pandemic, adaptability with my work (transitioning all my classes online), worry for my family/friends/students, but that was before the thunderstorm wrought fires up and down the west coast. Today, all those limits have continued to be pushed and feeling trapped in my home, I am fighting an internal darkness. I am momentarily pausing my distress to do something that brings me peace, thinking about art.
An initial, brief wave of melancholy breaks as I remember last being in the space with this work. I miss those devoted volunteers, the softened, filtered daylight that peeks behind the walls, the sanctimonious echo of my footsteps on the golden wood flooring, the big, open space of the galleries where I have made so many memories. Watching this video tour (posted below) stirred my veneration for the space (which serves as its own peaceful landscape) as well as giving me a second chance to meditate upon the artworks. There are many ways in which we use the term “landscape.” In art, as a genre of painting, landscapes can sometimes be overlooked by viewers. Perhaps they seem benign at first, but landscapes have always been imbued with ideas, communicating religious meaning in Northern Europe during the Reformation, or as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution in Romanticism, for example. We also talk about “political landscape” and using the word in this way can help materialize more abstruse concepts within a dialogue. This exhibition was intended to spark introspection and dialogue. Where I stand now, it appeals to my intuitive and emotional self-- sowing into those parts I find difficult to articulate. Timothy Moore’s Multiple Series activates several feelings with the frenetic line-work that wildly whips about. Some of the series looks like transparent pages of calligraphy, layered on top of one another with swaths of color interrupting the stark contrast of black and white. Others in this series have shapes composed of the buzzing, static electricity of his lines. Their calligraphic quality feels sacred, foreign, and set against the chaos of ink washes and blotches, there is a somberness juxtaposed with chipper pops of intense color. An installation by graffiti/mural artist Christian Garcia brings the outside in. Phrases like “No Justice No Peace” and “It’s Getting Hot Out Here” and a small image of the earth in flames, all resonate with our current events. The spray paint and seemingly random placement of varied sizes of text, makes it feel as though spontaneously created on the street over time by several anonymous people…a record of public thought. There is a push and pull, an attraction and repulsion characterized by a brightly colored rainbow and a white paper dove next to an overturned chair and discarded debris. This tension is carried throughout the exhibition. There is a lynched figure in Eric Richter’s Pervert, a miniature dystopia in Kandis Horton-Jorth’s matte-black assemblages, and Ama Posey’s large abstract painting now reads as swirling smoke and ash, yet the tone is not entirely bleak. The peeking hot pink in Posey’s Prologue or the Fauve-adjacent application of color in Ann Pierce’s abstract California Spring II, and the neon hues in the solemn, collaborative installation by Kristy Lively and Rakel Kieding Karbelnikoff, utilize the emotional power of color and evoke hope. There are pieces that reflect the state of the world in a more immediate way, whereas the elements of fantasy and science fiction in works like Scott Grist’s Strange Times allow my mind to wander and build connections. An undercurrent of something spiritual is one of the subtle outcomes from how these pieces speak to each other. I survey my interior landscape and discover a sense of calm. I don’t know what will happen, I don’t feel joyful, but I do feel grateful. I feel ready to solve problems and continue helping those in need. Watch the pop-up video tour here. monca is entirely volunteer-run and continues to work hard and safely to engage their community and beyond during these times. If you are able to donate or would like to support by purchasing a membership please visit their website.
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AuthorSara Smallhouse is tenure-track faculty in Art History at Butte College, teaches every once in a while at CSU, Chico, and is on the Board of Directors of monca (Museum of Northern California Art). She likes to walk around and look at things with her family, friends, or solo. Archives
February 2022
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