Chinese Brush Painting Exhibition By Chinese Artist Pan Gongkai Takes Center Stage At San Diego Museum of Fine Art

Pan Gongkai    artist in his studio   2015

Pan Gongkai   artist in his studio    2015

Noble Virtues

On view through February 1, 2016

Chinese artist Pan Gongkai follows in the footsteps of his father and celebrated Chinese painter, Pan Tianshou.  Though Tianshou suffered persecution during the Cultural Revolution(1966-1976), he went on to create a large body of work in the tradition of brush and ink painting, influencing his son. Pan Gongkai’s Noble Virtues  depicts “the four gentlemen”(si junzi): plum blossoms, orchids, bamboo, and chrysanthemums.  Gongkai’s fifteen meter scroll of ink on rice paper  was hand carried in sections and then framed as one long narrow work, elegantly displayed on the wall of Gallery 15, a public area adjacent to Panama 66 and the May S. Marcy Sculpture Court.  The scroll which reads right to left, represents the four seasons – the resilience of plum blossoms in winter, the delicate elegance of springtime orchids, the strength and flexibility of bamboo in summer, and the chrysanthemums defiantly blooming in autumn under the approaching winter chill. The five paintings of ink on rice paper on the opposite wall named as a series – Lotus Pond, depicts beautiful lotuses, which can lie dormant for many years prior to blossoming, emerging from murky waters, representing the resistance and purity of the soul. The immediate take on these works may be one of “just another display of Chinese brush painting”, however, at closer inspection the work exposes the artist’s deliberate, well-honed and confident line-making, a direct expressiveness of personal emotion, and a spontaneous feel - all reminiscent of  western abstract expressionist painters. We can picture Gongkai in his studio creating hundreds if not thousands of these kinds of paintings carefully narrowing down the selection to those that most closely meet his standards, thoughts and emotions about his subject matter and his relationship to it. There is a particular beauty, strength and simplicity to the work of this artist whose commitment to the years of a  disciplined art practice of using only brush, ink, and rice paper can make.  Gongkai comments that sadly, his kind of work may be lost on the current younger generations of Chinese because they are not being taught brush painting and will not have an appreciation of it.  It is for this reason that Gongkai strongly believes in a co-existence and continuing of traditions and methods across countries of the globe rather than a climate of integrated multi-culturalism.  Either way, the poetry and essence of Gongkai’s work speaks loudly, yet quietly of the unique traditions of his culture.

El Anatsui's Mesmerizing Exhibition at Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, Downtown

El Anatsui

Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works  on View Through June 28th

Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego

Article by Cathy Breslaw

www.cathybreslaw.com

Installation view of Gravity and Grace: Monumental Works by El Anatsui at the Akron Art Museum, 2012. Photo by Andrew McAllister, courtesy of the Akron Art Museum.

El Anatsui is an African artist who shares time between his childhood home in Ghana and Nigeria.  He is a mature artist whose artistic sensibility  can be traced to the 60’s and 70’s when painters, sculptors and installation artists experimented with accessible materials, turning their backs on tradition, and ushering

in new perspectives on “what is art”. While travelling through the various rooms at the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown San Diego, viewers are struck by the massive sizes of these textile-like wall and immersive works made with a combination of thousands of liquor bottle labels, bottle caps, wire ties, and round tin can tops that are wire stitched together, then fastened together with copper wire. Though the back story of the work speaks of the cultural, economic, and social issues of colonialism, globalism, waste, and consumerism, viewers are more caught up in the sheer visceral reactions to the size and gorgeous shimmering flowing patterns of gold, silver, red, blue, and brown colors woven through each piece. There is also a series of oversized ‘Wastepaper Bags’, five to eight feet in size, made of aluminum, and newspaper speaking to the problem of waste recycling in his country.  Two additional rooms are devoted to

El Anatsui’s drawings and wooden wall reliefs with metal and paint.  Anatsui carves and scorches with chainsaws and routers to gouge, torch and mark the many worn wooden slats. He makes reference to abstract visual systems of communication in these works as well as to the ancestry of the African people.

Though complex in their compositional elements, there is a particular directness and raw simplicity in these wood reliefs that is missing in the massive wall tapestries. It is interesting to note that these massive works are created with the help of El Anatsui’s thirty assistants and that when they are hung in the various

museums and other venues, the installers are free to manipulate these cloth-like metal works and hang them

as they desire. This ‘global collaboration’ in both the creation and presentation of El Anatsui’s art is a consistent underpinning of his work.

Vanguard Culture's Kristen Schweizer Reviews Cathy Breslaw's Exhibition "Imaginings", Rose Gallery, San Diego

Mixed media often finds solidity in GLUE.

 By Vanguard Culture / April 4, 2015 / Community Buzz /

Article by Kristen Schweizer

"Imaginings" Rose Gallery, Exhibition by Cathy Breslaw
Francis Parker School, San Diego

When we hear the term “mixed media,” many merely imagine complicated collages or other fastidiously fastened objects to canvas. At least, this was my inclination. Artist Cathy Breslaw shatters expectations with installations, wall work and drawings that seemingly defy both gravity and light. Her current exhibition, Imaginings, opened yesterday at the James Allen Rose Art Gallery at Francis Parker School in San Diego.

The instantly striking piece is Dream Scape, an installation made from industrial mesh suspended from the high ceilings of the gallery above portions of fabrics and paintings on the floor. Breslaw explained she was “inspired by the natural light, space and open high ceilings of the Rose Gallery.” I, however, was struck by the impactful nature of a fabric often written off as useless. Tulle, industrial mesh: these opaque fabrics are rarely the strength of a dress or window. However, they finally find center stage as somehow both substantial and subtle within Dream Scape.

That same sentiment is throughout her wall pieces as well. Translucent mesh, dyed and layered, seem like Rothko-reminiscent watercolor murals from afar. It is only up close that the viewer realizes her intentional delicacy. The painted mesh, somehow both inspiring a ballerina’s skirt and the protective shield of a screen door, are layered deliberately. The pieces wait unwearyingly; but it is merely a holding pattern. Upon the first breath of the viewer or gesture from the room: the pieces all dance. Alive and reactive to the slightest breeze, they move like the sky and watercolor in motion. It’s impossible to see the piece the same way twice as a result. It requires the viewer to change their opinion, to see new colors within the layers.

Breslaw’s mastery is evident in the construction. More often than not I found myself searching the seams and edges for proof that these pieces were deliberate. The work is so full of life it’s easy to believe that it made itself until you take a closer look…then that the purposeful expression and shape-making becomes apparent.

The genius is echoed in comparison. As the gallery is housed within a school, student mixed media art with colored mesh is also featured. While the students’ color, enthusiasm and ideas show bravely, they prove that a true artist finds more than immediate color, patterns, and texture for her inspiration. The student art is solidly pretty – but that is all it is. Breslaw’s art is impactful in its tenuous patience; a breathless reminder of what beauty actually is.

Imaginings runs from Thursday, April 2 through May 5, open from 7:30AM to 3:30PM at 6501 Linda Vista Road, San Diego, CA 92111.

Helen Redman 'Lifelines' Retrospective Exhibition at Womens Museum San Diego - Begins April 23rd

Helen Redman: Lifelines

Mesa College, San Diego CA, moving on to Womens' Museum San Diego April 23 - May 31

Article by Cathy Breslaw

www.cathybreslaw.com

Helen Redman    Mesa College    April 2015  (drawings on wood in background)

“A mother speaks to her children through generations”. This quote by Terry Tempest Williams, printed on the first page of Helen Redman’s catalog ‘Lifelines’, describes the essence of Redman’s work as an artist. Redman’s art is courageously expressed through the lens of herself in relationship to motherhood and grandmother-hood. Rather than hiding her gender as many female artists of her generation have done, Redman faces it all head-on. Both her identity and life challenges as a woman and mother take central stage in her paintings and drawings in this retrospective exhibition. For Redman, her role as an artist is inextricably linked to her family as she documents the stages of pregnancy, birth, grief from the death of a child, and the growth of her children and grandchildren at various points into adulthood. Redman began her ‘Lifeline’ series in the early 1960’s.  Her realistic but expressionistic style of drawing and painting have remained consistent throughout the years. Her use of color, form, shape and patterns provide us with direct clues about how Redman was feeling and thinking at any particular point in time each work was created. Using a range of materials – pen and ink, oil pastel, acrylic and oil paint and mixed media, on surfaces ranging from paper, canvas, to wood, Redman’s figurative works also tackle the female through stages of menopause and aging. Though Redman’s work has connections to female painters like Frieda Kahlo and Alice Neel, Redman’s work is more intimate and personal. ‘Lifelines’ is a life-chronicle that along with her family who are fortunate enough to have their lives documented in such a personal way, we can appreciate and perhaps see some of ourselves mirrored in the process. ‘Lifelines’ closes at Mesa College on April 14^th but moves on to the Womens’ Museum in San Diego and is on view from April 23- May 31^st.