URBAN EXPRESSION is a vibrant, exciting mix of photography, installation, video, painted, and collage works. As such it successfully explores a wide range of themes from urban spaces to culture and social issues and the personal. This is fresh and fine work.
Both intimate and experimental – as well as experiential – the show was juried by Kelly RISK Graval. Artists include: Orell Anderson, Timothy Armstrong, Audineh Asaf, Aaron Bernard, Leslie Brown, Diane Cockerill, Gianne de Genevraye, Voytek Glinkowski, Tanner Goldbeck, Rob Grad, Kara Greenwell, Brian Hernandez E.E. Jacks, Nicola Katsikis, Jason Leith, Kathe Madrigal, Don Manderson, Debra Manville, Stuart McCall, Maidy Morhous, Veru Narula, Robin Repp, Gareth Seigel, Stephanie Sydney, Randy Wheeler, and Elyse Wyman.
Among the standouts were Jason Leith‘s moving charcoal and acrylic on tent fly “Andy and Ozzy: Grieving and Blessing,” among other powerful, central work in the exhibition by this artist…
and Elyse Wyman’s merging of photography with plastic and acrylic and collage, with the human torso presenting a landscape and an admonishment to “Watch Downhill Speed.”
Diane Cockerill’s evocative, involving street photography includes her breathtaking full color “Eye Catching,” a capture of a street mural with a homeless man passing grey and unseen in the foreground; her black and white “Lost Angeles” also uses a wonderful combination of street scene with street art.
Stephanie Sydney’s “Triple Exposure two” is a wild splash of color in an entirely urban sea that vibrates with intensity; terrific images from Rob Grad and Tanner Goldbeck were also espeically memorable.
Can’t make in person? Visit a 3D view of the exhibition here.
Elsewhere in Santa Ana, the Grand Central Art Center is currently showing, through May 12th, a riveting video essay by Coco Fusco “Your Eyes Will Be An Empty Word,” and Hings Lim’s fierce “Specter at the Gate,” evoking an often forgotten event on the 1906 burning of Santa Ana’s Chinatown.
- Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis