SUMMER ART CRUISE! More great work from Tucson's artists

Every month in Tucson, the first Saturday is devoted to a downtown artwalk, where all of the galleries stay open, from 6 - 9 pm. Today, I visited four galleries in the afternoon (Hotel Congress Lobby, Drawing Studio,  Shot in the Dark Cafe, and Etherton Gallery), and seven galleries at night (Crystal Rhinestone Gallery, Davis Dominguez Gallery, Contreras Gallery, Platform Gallery, Raices Taller, Conrad Wilde Gallery, Dinnerware Gallery, and Solar Culture. 

The lobby in Hotel Congress is currently showing an exhibit of nine framed collaged drawings of "world travelers" by artist Barbara Brandel. Each piece is the representation of a character, who is made out of postage stamps. The background of each piece is a portion of some map. The stamps and the maps aren't really related in any way, but sometimes they are (as in the case of the outer space stamps set against the backdrop a piece of a map of the moon.  Brandel has a formula that she uses to make these images: each 'traveler" gets their face from some postage stamp that's got a portrait for an image, while the the body is composed various other stamps. Brandel's pictures are cute, and probably appreciated by the world travelers who pass through Tucson and stay overnight at the Congress Hotel.

"Chionsam for travel" by Barbara Brandel; note the little postage stamp head

A short walk around the corner on 6th Ave is The Drawing Studio.  There is always work on their walls, evidence of the numerous classes taught here. Currently they are showing, in their main room, a collection of intaglio prints made by students of the drawing studio. Jennifer Clarke has the most prominent display here: 16 prints of muscle shells (or are they lungs? or hemispheres of the brain??) Each print is a different color; same image, different colors, 16 times, arranged in a 4 x 4 matrix:

image lifted from http://harriethomemaker.wordpress.com/

Other images in this show were Joe Marshall's "Shades",

"Shades" by Joe Marshall

a portrait of a woman by Jeanne Davenport,

image by Jeanne Davenport (listed as "untitled" in the show)

and "Birth" by Gerry Young, is a photo etching.  The image looks like a grainy black and white photo of a  dried desert plant; it has a "jaws" look.

Those pointy shapes are actually spines or thorns, yikes! ("Birth" by Gerry Young)

After visiting the Drawing Studio, I walked down the street to the Etherton Gallery to get a glimpse of their "Masters of American Photography" exhibit, but it wasn't schedule to open for four days from this writing, so my visit was a bit premature. Still, I did get to look around, and there's a huge amount of work in there.  Here's a glimpse of what I saw:

The whole gallery was crammed with work like this! Should be a good show!

I then went across the street to the Shot in the Dark Cafe to hang out for a while, and to check out whatever art they had on their walls. I was in luck! They'd just hung a new exhibit by artist Amber Guevara (aka "Poshie").  She was at the cafe writing up labels. Her work is very edgy and dark. I like how she combines are own cartoon drawings with found objects (that is, the boards that serve as her painting surfaces), and then she goes back into them with spray paint. She uses marker, spray paint, and acrylic on wood, and various boards.  Her work is a combination of collage, cartoons, found objects, and graffiti. Her work isn't the easiest to look at, but it captures something real about our society. I think she's very talented. Her work is very gutsy.

artist Amber Guevara in front of her piece "Bang!"

"Happiness" by Amber Guevara

"Bang!" by Amber Guevara

When 6 pm rolled, I started checking out galleries on 6th Street. The first one I walked into was the Crystal Rhinetone Gallery.   This gallery features the work of Seoyeong Cho (Gupton).  She makes very large water color paintings, with loads of salt added for effect. There is so much salt on these works, that it's piled up like a crust. I don't know how she gets the salt to adhere to those large sheets of watercolor paper, but the effect is quite startling; just a few colors with loads of salt added.

Seoyeong Cho (Gupton) in front of one of her massive crusty clouds

These works are huge. She told me that she works in the manner of Jackson Pollock, the famed Abstract Expressionist artist who worked in hip boots, splattering and drooling paint over large sheets of canvas. Seoyeong Cho works in a similar fashion, but instead of oil on canvas, she uses watercolor (and salt) on paper.

Seoyeong Cho (Gumpton), with friend, in front of another of her large salty paintings

Next door to the Crystal Rhinestone, is the Conrad Wilde Gallery.  Tonight was the opening of local artist Barbara Rogers.  For years Barbara Rogers has been making very stylized paintings that explore natural forms. Her work seems in line with the motivations of art noveau movement, in it's to create flowing, stylized, natural forms, although, as Rogers pointed out, she doesn't include images of people in her work: just natural stylized forms. One thing that impressed me about Rogers' work on display at the Conrad Wilde Gallery is how contemporary it looks: it's bright vivid color, its hard-edged shapes, its division of the painting surface into a series of small sub-paintings, and the overall highly vertical shape of her pieces...it reminds me of tattoo art and Japanese comics, two art forms popular among today's youth.

artist Barbara Rogers at her opening at Conrad Wilde

Barbara told me that she regards her paintings as "vertical gardens", and that she is very inspired by the "arabesque" design.  The vertical shape is very oriental; just think of Chinese or Japanese paintings: they often work on the vertical.

Rogers  builds a compositional tension into her work: the subdivision of her pieces into smaller panels into smaller squares is evidence of "the human", whereas organic forms are a ode to nature.  On many levels, her work is enjoyable to look at: as I've noted earlier, it's got a very contemporary sense of design which seems aware and a part of current trends in graphic design, plus its got some deep links with art history. Nice work, Barbara!

At Davis Dominquez Gallery, there was a mob scene of people attending the gallery's summer invitational. All kinds of art, big and small, were on display. I counted roughly 75 artworks on the walls of all of the rooms and spaces that make up the gallery.  Four pieces jumped out at me in particular: works by Albert Kogel, Joe Hatton, Lee Chesney, and Barbara Jo McLaughlin.

Albert Kogel had some sculptured wood pieces of his dog, a favorite subject of his (with a red bird on his dog's head) . I like his stressed wood approach at creating this work; it looks chunks of wood bashed together with a hammer and them reinforced with nails, and...did I see dog teeth marks?? I really like Albert's work for it's visceral earthy quality. It brings out the dog in me.

Albert Kogel: "Sabia and Friend"

Another piece I liked was Joe Hatton's drawing called "Thirsty Cholla", which he drew with a Sharpie and Whiteout...some of my favorite art materials!

"Thirsty Cholla" by Joe Hatton

Artist  Lee Chesney had a very large colorful painting in the show, called "Heaven Can Wait".  It's a very joyful colorful piece, and seems to be about good vibes and loving life.  The whole painting looks as if it's in party mode:

"Heaven Can Wait" by Lee Chesney

Local sculptor Barbara Jo McLaughlin has a new, very interesting wooden piece in this show called "Rocking Structure". It's made of wood, steel, and aluminum.  Those of you who've followed Barbara's work in the past know that wood is her favorite material, especially plywood. I think it's a lot of fun, and it's kinetic! Just tap it, and it starts rocking back and forth!

Barbara Jo McLaughlin's "Rocking Structure"

Mc Laughlin with "Rocking Structure". Just give it a tap, and it's off to the races!

Further down the street is the Contreras Gallery, where David Tineo  was having a solo exhibit.  If Tucson has a art rockstar, he is it. He sat in the gallery, like a king, surrounded by his creations. I must say, Tineo has gotten even better! His work is much more finished than I recall seeing in the past. Or maybe it's just the effect of seeing about fifteen of his paintings all in one place. His recent exhibit at the Tucson Museum of Art (about a year ago) had a similar effect of me. When you see a room full of Tineo's work all at once, the effect is really quite powerful.

David Tineo with his painting "Corn Princess"

"Guardian Warrior": This would make a great comic book cover!

"Gothic Angel": Tineo at his mythological, surrealistic best. He's not just a painter...he's a storyteller!

At the Raices Taller 222 Gallery, down the street, the theme was "Chubasco!" (or "Monsoon")...how considerate of Raices, to grace Tucson with an art exhibit about torrential downpour, right as we're in the midst of another scorching summer!  This show is loaded with artwork, some of it very good. A particular fave of mine is Joe Rebholz's digitally manipulated photos of Doppler storm photos. I remember Joe always having to make his case over and over again that what he was doing was "digial painting" (versus "computer graphics"). Well, I think he's finally succeeded! These are rich and roiling (and large) digital prints that have all of color and apparant texture of a painting. I think they're really great.  John Salgado also had an interesting installation piece called "Barrio Monsoon", which hwe describes as a mixed media assemblage with found objects. Basically Salgado simulated the effect of a storm, with water drizzling on a window pane and water dripping into a tin bucket.  A hidden water pump kept the piece chugging along forever.  There were many pieces here tonight worth mentioning.  Raices has a policy of no photography of artwork during openings, so I've got none to show here, but maybe I'll get a chance to get some photos later on in the month. Check out the show while it's up. Another personal fave: "Tloloc's Waterproof Rain Curtain", but some artist whose name I can remember. ;)

At the Platform Gallery, painter Bryan Crow has some interesting paintings of brains. They seem to be based on MRI pictures of the brain. He's added tutti-frutti colors and psychedelic stylings jazz things up.  I like pop graffitti-like quality of his work. He reminds me a mix between Basqiat and Gary Panter.  This work I regard as "fun". Would probably make great images for CD album covers!

"Thinking" by Bryan Crow: this is your brain on art

"Wake Up" by Bryan Crow.  An intimate self portrait of the artist's brain?

Another artist whose work I liked at the Platform Gallery was Nadia Hlibka.  She had a  sculptural object, shaped like a house, and made of a copy of the Tucson White Pages.

"My Home Town" by Nadia Hlibka

Over at the Dinnerware Gallery, more interesting stuff on display. An ambitious piece by Kaye Guerin, some funky art by Roberta Lewis, and some eye-candy by Jerome Rago.

A huge sculptured painting by Kaye Guerin

some funky art by Roberta Lewis

"Let's Go Crazy" by Jerome Rago

Last stop for me was Solar Culture. It was a mob scene in there. That narrow space, crowded shoulder to shoulder, with a long table of complimentary eats, and art crammed on every free space on the walls, from floor to ceiling.  At the far end of the gallery, a band was setting up it's instruments on the stage.

An amazing doorway at Solar Culture

art hung floor-to-ceiling, with the sweaty throng below

...and still more art!

And that's the way it was (to me) for Tucson's Downtown Artwalk "Summer Cruise"! There were still a lot of things that I missed, but that should give you a sense of some of what's happening in Downtown Tucson's art scene. 

Tune in again, for another installment of Tucson's Art Exhibits Reviewed!