Sanchez Art Center has now attained the venerable age of twenty-five, and the art we bring to the community is better than ever. No longer a quiet, largely unknown entity, SAC has come of age. As we begin celebrations for our 25-year anniversary, we are very proud to present a major show by our studio artists. This exhibition, titled The Gang's All Here: Artists of Sanchez, is curated by our Artistic Director, Jerry Ross Barrish, a well-known sculptor and filmmaker. The Gang's All Here: Artists of Sanchez will fill Main and East Galleries. In West Gallery, the Art Guild of Pacifica will present its group show, About Face. Both exhibitions open June 4 and will run through June 27.
29 artists are participating in the Artists of Sanchez exhibition, which includes a wide range of artistic media: oil, acrylic, and watercolor painting; mixed media, printmaking, assemblage, and installation works; wire drawings; textile art; and fine art jewelry. The artworks also encompass a wide range of styles, from abstract to superrealistic and everything in between. Curator Jerry Barrish visited the Sanchez Art Center studios and selected several works from each artist, paying special attention to choosing artworks that represent each artist's unique voice.
Here are just a few of the artists in The Gang's All Here: Artists of Sanchez.
Christina Conklin is an artist, writer, and researcher whose work investigates impermanence and possibility, often using the ocean as both site and metaphor. Her essays, exhibitions, events, and interactive installations consider our personal and societal responses to the intersecting global crises of our time. She recently completed writing and illustrating a book on climate change in the ocean, The Atlas of Disappearing Places: Our Coasts and Oceans in the Climate Crisis.
Robert Regis Dvorák is a brilliant painter who finds inspiration in nature—the human form and dramatic landscapes. He has a confident command of both watercolor and oil. His watercolors glow with luminous color and dramatic light. They are fresh and transparent, creating magical illusions of his subject. Dvorak teaches workshops in the Bay Area, Sacramento, and in Yosemite, and has written several books on drawing.
Lola Fraknoi is a mixed media printmaker and painter who has been a professional artist and art teacher in the Bay Area for many years. She founded Ruth's Table, an intergenerational art center rooted in the life and art of renowned artist, Ruth Asawa. For people with dementia, Lola designed an art kit that is currently sold around the world. Her artworks reflect the complexity of her experience of the world with layering of textures, photos, colors, and shadows, "one on top of the other, as if in geological time," she says. "Layering," she also notes, "offers the opportunity to slow down and let the art process take its course."
Susan Friedman's work evolved from her relationship with the land and its topography. Says the artist, "Living on a mountain top for 30 years has had a profound effect on my interior life, dictating the way I see my photographic and painting worlds as well." In the artist's words, her art "has to do with the ways in which the fragments or elements of collage, acrylic paint—old book pages, scarred ephemera, and mark-making—mirror the landscape in its beauty and fragility." These works are both delicate and powerful, like the land that inspires them.
Elizabeth Ross is a maker of fine art jewelry whose inspiration is: "Fire! A primal element brought under control and manipulated by torch!" Ross says she knew from the first time she held a torch to metal, that this was her field. "I was hooked, locked into a lifetime of joyful creation and experimentation with precious metals, fabulous gems, and minerals! I feel connected to my inner alchemist."
The studio artists at Sanchez bring a high degree of excellence and dedication to their artistic calling. They are serious about their craft, always creating, experimenting, evolving, and producing new works. They are accomplished working artists who exhibit locally and nationally in juried and museum shows. They also collaborate, sharing ideas and materials, sharing exhibition venues, marketing ideas, framing advice, and curating decisions. They also encourage the arts through teaching in public and private settings, from full classrooms to private lessons. (For a list of SAC studio artists and their works in our virtual galleries, click here.) |
