Abstract, photo-realistic and ceramic art exhibitions opened this month. Plus, new grants for artists.
Even with COVID-19 forcing businesses to close again, some local art spaces have new exhibitions available to view.
Guidelines for safe viewing may differ between locations, and appointments may be required. But get out your masks and prepare to socially distance from other art lovers so you can get close to art.
Exhibitions:
Every year, Axis Gallery brings together work from around the country to be judge and displayed. Its 15th National Juried Exhibition opened on Aug. 8.
This year, the exhibition was juried by Marcela Pardo Ariza, a San Francisco-based visual artist who “proposed an exhibition on touch, intimacy and unintentional solitude in a time of oversaturated digital interaction.” The resulting exhibition features local artists including Elise Weber and Carmel Dor, alongside national talent including Texas artist Cody Arnall, each exploring the theme of intimacy while honoring the societal shifts caused by COVID-19, the Black Lives Matter movement and LGBTQAI+ representation.
625 S St., noon-6 p.m. Saturday, by appointment only, axisgallery.org/appointments/
Don’t feel like going out of the house for an art show? Why not experience a virtual show from the comfort of your couch? Sacramento artist Tavarus Blackmon created Art Music Lit Space as a virtual exhibition space for artists around the country to share their work.
The current exhibit, curated by Blackmon and Derek Kwan, is titled Methods of Negotiation, and features the work of Anne Garvey, Liyu Xue, Miranda Magaña and many others. The work is a response to the question posed by Kwan in the exhibitions opening statement: “How do we negotiate a world where many of our usual methods of negotiation have been disrupted?”
This exhibition is only available virtually.
Viewpoint Photographic Art Center:
In the main gallery space at Viewpoint Gallery is a dual exhibition featuring Bree Lamb’s A House, A Home and Domenico Foschi’s Tarnished Promises. Additionally, in the Step Up Gallery is John Sitka’s About Trees. All exhibitions are available for viewing in person or online until Sept. 5.
A House, A Home Lamb places ordinary household items— folded jeans, party hats, hand mirrors, measuring cups— against plain pastel backgrounds in a style reminiscent of Sarah Charlesworth’s Object’s of Desire series.
Tarnished Promises similarly features household objects, but Foschi renders the objects using toned silver gelatin printing, resulting in a loose painterly aesthetic, contrasting the sharp edges found in Lamb’s work.
Sitka’s About Trees features aluminum prints of landscapes with, you guessed it, trees. A wide range of stylistic approaches as well as species of tree are on display.
2015 J St., noon-5 p.m., Thursday-Friday, (916) 441-2341
Featured at Blue Line Arts Gallery in Roseville is the work of artist Donald Satterlee and the 2020 Off Center international ceramic competition. A Third Saturday reception is planned for Aug. 15 and the exhibitions are available for viewing until Sept. 12.
Satterlee is featuring black and white landscapes with a focus on architecture, atmosphere and Venitian scenes. His approach includes the use of split toning, which lends the work an ethereal, nostalgic quality.
The Off Center exhibition features the ceramic work of more than 40 artists in as many styles. Each piece is wholly unique, including organic loose moldings and precise highly geometric designs.
405 Vernon St. Suite 100, Roseville, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday, (916) 783-4117, book an appointment
The gallery is featuring three Sacramento artists with varied relationships to the city. Jupiter Lockett was born and raised in Sacramento, Darby Madden Gross adopted the city and Anthony Sylva left it for the East coast. While they’ve had different paths, the three abstract artists are in a group show until Aug. 29.
Each artist approaches abstraction in different ways. Lockett’s work flattens space, focusing on the spatial relationships between the subjects and their environment. Madden Gross uses frenetic brush strokes, lots of colors and a sloppy child-like approach to create a busy canvas without regard to borders. And Sylva’s landscapes are painted with muted colors and simple brush strokes, straddling the line between realism and abstraction.
923 20th St., noon-6 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday, (916) 665-8268, call for appointments.
Be Cool Club opened in March, operated by Barry of B. Sakata Garo. Currently the gallery is hosting the ceramic work of John Weber until Aug. 29.
Weber’s glazed vases, figurative sculptures, painted plates and reliefs, all of which utilize a muddy color scheme, are featured in the show. The figurative sculptures and reliefs depict people in varying levels of abstraction. Some are made with accurate proportions and realistic gestures, such as one of a pregnant woman, while others are removed from realism and rendered with generalized forms. All of the work is abstract to some degree, some more divorced from realism than others.
915 20th St., noon-6 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday, (916) 447-4276, call for appointments.
This is the last week to see the shows at Pence Gallery in Davis. Since July 3, the gallery has had three simultaneous exhibitions: Slice A Juried Exhibit, Kindred Connections featuring Marti Schoen and Binuta Sudhakaran and Because I Know I Shall Not Know by David Olivant.
The three exhibitions will be closing on Aug. 16, after which a 2020 Art Auction will be held Sept. 1- 26.
212 D St., Davis, 11:30 a.m.-5 p.m., Tuesday- Friday, Sunday, (530) 758-3370
Until Sept. 3, Elliott Fouts Gallery is displaying an exhibition titled The Lake Paintings by Tyler Abshier. The photo-realistic depictions of places such as Silver Lake, Granite Lake and Lake Tahoe are painted with such precise attention to detail that they are easily mistaken for photographs.
The landscapes are drawn in a plain style, without harsh dramatic lighting, and rarely feature any evidence of human intervention. A standout piece is Stargazing, Silver Lake, a four-foot wide, nearly pitch black oil painting depicting the quiet glow of starlight, barely visible over a dark mountainside.
1831 P St., 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Tuesday-Friday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Saturday-Sunday, (916) 736-1429
Art Grants:
On July 22, the California Arts Council announced the California Relief Fund for Artists and Cultural Practitioners, in partnership with The Center for Cultural Innovation. The fund allocates $920,000 of the council’s state grants for $1,000 rapid-relief grants.
To be eligible, artists must be full-time California residents and a professional artist or practitioner and cannot be receiving state unemployment insurance (excluding federal CARES Act benefits).
The deadline for applications is 3 p.m. Aug. 18.
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