Transforming Existence
SDSU Downtown Gallery, San Diego
Through April 8th
article by Cathy Breslaw
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David Fobes Psycho dos us HD video projected onto canvas 76" x 1-6" 2017
Transforming Existence is an exhibition of forty-five artists from San Diego
State University including both faculty and students from the School of Art and
Design. Focused on the early 20th
century art and literature movement of Surrealism, these works examine the
magical, the strange, the uncanny and the unexpected. Through the language of
painting, sculpture, ceramics, jewelry, photography, graphic design,digital
art and video, these art pieces marry and mix both reality and fantasy, and the
conscious/unconscious of human experience.
Paintings The
Vows by Marie Bravo and The Feast
by Tyler Young resemble the style of the
Surrealists of the early 1900’s. Blow You Away by Stewart Parker creates a
contemporary version of an expansive abstract painting combining acrylic paint
and foam that spill onto the wall in repetitive grid-like charcoal drawings on
the wall while paint spills onto a comfortable white chair. Epitomizing the feel of the surreal is a
digital print Dreaming by Hina
Kimura, a combination of painting and photography of a man with a distorted
face, with flowers surrounding his neck and head, while floating/falling
backward in space. A copper sculpture WWASD Unmoored by Julian Adams questions
our notion of gravity with its anchor attached to a chain upside down from what
we would expect. An interactive installation piece Revere
by Max Lofano asks viewers to step on a pedal emitting drum-like sound from an
old-school speaker. A contemporary interactive work, Soundscape , by Matthew Higgins and Chris Warren using an HD video game-playing device that when
manipulated by the viewer, creates sounds as you plot around the yellow-green decorative
checkerboard grid projected on a screen. Carved out into the gallery is a blackened
space where viewers can experience David Fobes’s Psycho dos us, an HD video projected on canvas, a piece layered
with psychedelic moving patterns, sound and a background of people performing
various activities. Jewelry created with
brass, copper, silver, shells and other accessible materials are displayed as
are quirky and mysterious small wall sculptures by Richard Keely made of
cement, glue and resin. Surprising and often hilarious, explained as “weird
tools” based upon Japanese Chindogu objects were “tools” created by artists Tim
Demuth, Liz Koerner, and Aleya Lanteigne - Bust
Cover, EmotiHelmet,Soap Scuzz Cleaner and a Potpourri Bowl which fits over the nose.
