"The New World", Exhibition at Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, Chaffey College,CA

Artists:Cathy Breslaw(installation/floor pce),
Joe Suzuki(painting,rt wall),Chris Barnard(painting,lt wall)

Last night I attended the opening for the "New World" group exhibition at the Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art. Other than my own installation "Above, Below and Beyond" are the works of: Isabel Avila, Chris Barnard, Hugo Crosthwaite, Asad Faulwell, Chuck Feesago, Galleria Perdida, Kaguya, Bianca Kolonusz-Partee, Elleni Sclaventitis, and Joe Susuzi. The exhibition considers the changing social,political, and economic relations in the world as observed from the perspective of southern California trained artists. There is a wide range of conversations and art practices reflecting this concept within the work of the artists included - however, all the artists are touched in some profound way by the global issues facing our world. Chris Barnard creates landscape paintings that reflect upon imperial expansion, Elleni Sclavenitis's film "Phoenix" addresses the complexity of colonialism and its impact on society's views of themselves, Joe Suzuki's practice explores his "Japanamerican" culture, and Asad Faulwell's paintings reflects a painterly style as it relates to his Iranian heritage using traditional Islamic painting to create his works. Hugo Crosthwaite's huge wall mural depicts unsettling large figures inhabited by phantoms and threatening forms, which confront misconceptions Americans have of Tijuana and Mexico. Kaguya is an artist collaborative practicing a critical approach to design, fabrication, distribution, and theorization of functional objects. Through their work included, they bring an awareness of the museum as an institution, not a neutral space and reminds us that this exhibition is a constant negotiation between designer, artist, curator, director, audience and institution. Gallery Perdida is a mutidisciplinary practice that uses a variety of media but for this exhibition they selected all the typefaces for any information affiliated with the exhibition, and their piece is best viewed through the framework of a scaffold supporting a refurbishment and its laborers. Isabel Avila is photographer and videographer who documents indigenous people and their stories and her work for the exhibition discusses the relationships between Native American and Mexican American cultures. Bianca Kolonsz- Partee's work explores global commerce presenting viewers with the massive shipping ports created to facilitate international trade. Her materials are a delicate mix of recycled product packaging, colored pencils, adhesives and map tacks carefully installed as a temporary construction within the gallery space. Chuck Feesago's work contemplates contemporary western culture and low brow consumer goods as an abundance of waste - however, he uses materials such as art magazines, acrylic, plastics and cotton to create a somewhat formal composition using the grid as a structure to form his art piece, dangling at points from the ceiling yet having a floor piece below also constructed from the form of a grid. Lastly, my work, "Above, Below and Beyond" is an installation constructed primarily from industrial mesh materials from China, paint, and mixed media. The floor piece is made of reflective materials that mirror the suspended piece above. This exhibition explores many different art practices all having given careful consideration to bringing to our awareness, how global commerce and its trappings inform our world. The show continues through March 16th.