From Similar Origins to Remarkable Visions: Eight Alumni
September 2 – October 3, 2008
Curator |
Begovich Gallery Director, Mike McGee
About the Exhibition
The forty-five paintings and drawings included in this exhibition give no indication that these eight artists with distinctly individual styles share a common origin—study and training at the same school. Karen Brown, Deborah Davidson, Jeff Gillette, David Michael Lee, James Lorigan, Ann Phong, Max Presneill and Emigdio Vasquez bear testimony to the diversity of artwork that has come out of Cal State Fullerton's art department.
A sampling of the artists' remarkable visions includes Brown's giant eight-foot high surreal drawing "Big Ghost Fish"; Davidson's poignant "Umbrella on Fire" painted on a diminutive 9" x 12" panel; Lee's six-foot square "Observation" bursting with bright stripes, an eagle and the suggestion of an upside-down head of our nation's Founding Father; Phong's three-dimensional canvas "Group Hugs" with ghost-like images rising out of a mixed media surface; Vasquez' "La Calle Cuartro" where store front windows reflect a more-vivid-than-life street scene; Gillette's "Garbagepatch 2" in which an idyllic seascape surprisingly comes into focus as an ocean of plastic waste; Lorigan's dark and ominous "Joker" shows a parrot holding a thin string in its beak that it dangles into a glowing hell realm; and Presneill's large (5' x 7') "Sphinx – A Promise Awaits Quietly" depicting a winged, bare-breasted, lion-footed figure gazing out from a space filled with riotous colors, images and shapes.
