Julien Colombier at Art Produce Gallery
Can't say I didn't warn you but I did, and now we have a perfect case (several) of what a lot of us have been preaching these past several months - consistency, integrity, vision and how to put on a good show. March has turned out to be an excellent and exciting month in North Park, particularly on that hallowed art ground we call Ray St. I believe one should lead by example, especially when it comes to exhibiting in the art world. Lead they have and remarkably well, both Spacecraft and 4 Walls have exhibits ranging in style and temperament with rock solid performances. At Spacecraft Matt Wedel is showing some large scale glazed ceramic sculptures of quirky and delightfully charming Polar Bears embracing or dancing, and colorful singular slices of flowering plants clinging to angular stacked boulders. The photographer Bill Dane and the mixed-media artist Kimberly Tomney round out a beautiful and compelling show of works at 4 Walls. Bill Dane, for those of you like myself who are learning about him for the first time, is a longtime Bay Area photographer who has received critical acclaim during his long career and who has also received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts each twice. Impressive for work rich in metaphor that combines straight non-manipulated photos of juxtaposed layers of "common" everyday life - bus stops, billboards, window panes, advertising etc. - mixed in with the folk who inhabit that environment, reflected and shadowed oftentimes by the artist's own shadow in a domino effect of us as viewer/voyeur, the artist, and then the subject (photographed). They are stunningly simple and beautiful.
Kimberly's amalgam aluminum and pen & ink drawings on paper of suburban swimming pools have that definite Southern Californian feel to them, reminiscent of Edward Ruscha's black & white photos of the same subject in "Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass" and they even retain the same dead-pan humor and irony of his images. What sets Kimberly's drawings apart is the elegance, simplicity of line and form, and the almost religious atmosphere she creates and worships upon such a banal luxury.
4 Walls Gallery
Spacecraft Gallery
Finally, French artist Julien Colombier from Paris has orchestrated a spectacular installation of painted paper bags at the Art Produce Gallery. Derrik Chinn, online editor of the Nightlife & Visitors info at SignOnSanDiego.com, has written a nice little article about Julien's exhibit complete with several photos and a series of questions & answers for the artist. You can read an excerpt from the article below:
POP BOMB: Julien Colombier at ART Produce
Graffiti sprayed all over the sides of city trains, buses and walls. Entire sides of skyrises draped with advertisements. Digital billboards towering over the interstate. Urban decor has exploded with such an intensity that megalopolises such as Sao Paulo, Brazil (population: 10,886,518), are beginning to ban all forms of public advertisements. Imagine ... continue.
If this isn't enough to get you into Spring with a light heart and a head full of images, I can't help you then...
"cash flow" - Bruno Lavelle
Dans le chant de ma colère il y a un oeuf,
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