May 6, 2005
Contact: Barbara Morningstar
University Art Gallery
(805) 767-1571
Cal Poly University Art Gallery Exhibit
To Feature Works of Five Contemporary Artists
SAN LUIS OBISPO - "Free For All," a contemporary art exhibit running Friday, May 13, though Friday, June 3, at Cal Poly's University Art Gallery, presents the work of five recent post-graduates of Southern California art schools.
The exhibit opens May 13 with a talk and artists' reception. Artists Eric Deis and David Khang reside in Vancouver, British Columbia, and will send video and photographic installations. Los Angeles area painters Elisa Johns, Lara Minissian and Brett Cody plan to attend the opening.
Michael Miller and Tera Galanti of the Cal Poly Department of Art and Design are co-curators of the exhibit. "The intention of the 'Free for All' exhibit was to bring artists from Southern California to the Central Coast to create a higher level of engagement between students here and in the Southland," said co-curator Galanti.
"In recent years there has been an extraordinary amount of activity in Southern California's art institutions and nomadic arts scene, which has moved from the Westside to Chinatown to Culver City. Wherever the art scene moves, new galleries are fueled by the energy of highly motivated and active graduate programs. The hothouse art of Los Angeles reflects the global discourse of contemporary art in its multi-voiced character," Galanti said.
Artist Brett Cody Rogers describes his paintings as "an experiment
in the tension between abstraction and figuration, the visual and
language. The subjects represented are objects and environments
of the everyday, things in my immediate surroundings, such as a
nondescript flight of stairs or the atrium of a modern building.
Often juxtaposing 'the natural' with the manmade/artificial, these
banal occurrences are represented as abstract
events, where layers, and marks of paint organize a total image."
Eric Deis says his art "is a process of inquiry to understand
the world around us and
engage with its infinite richness." He uses a diverse range
of mediums to expose how the devices we have developed to articulate
information shape our perception of the world. "Euphoria for
the subtle peculiarities of his immediate environment inspires him
to augment the structures that shape our understanding of the world
to expose its flaws and splendor," said Barbara Morningstar,
University Art Gallery curator.
For more information, contact Morningstar at (805) 756-1571.
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