Works of Six Artists Examine the Environment in “It’s All Around You” Exhibit at Harris Art Gallery
“It’s All Around You” is a group exhibition of Los Angeles-based artists Samantha Fields, Anita Bunn, Jared Pankin, Lucas Reiner, Roland Reiss and Devon Tsuno. Their works, which examine natural and synthetic elements of the environment, will be on display February 9 through March 9, 2010, in the Harris Art Gallery at the University of La Verne.
Located in the university’s Landis Academic Center, the Harris Gallery is open to the public Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and by appointment. Admission is free.
A reception for the artists will be hosted on Tuesday, Feb. 9 from 6-8 p.m. in the gallery. For more information, contact Galleries Director Dion Johnson at (909) 593-3511 ext. 4763.
The paintings of Fields and photography of Bunn present natural landscapes with distinct individuality. The atmospheric surfaces of Fields’ disastrous forest fires and turbulent storm clouds glow with a sense of beauty and danger, while Bunn’s colors of changing chlorophyll and textures of cotton soft clouds radiate with optimism and mystery.
Reiner’s oil on canvas paintings and Tsuno’s works on paper are fueled by photographed images of nature in the urban Los Angeles environment. The carefully rendered trees in Reiner’s work confidently exist in an abstract time and place: a re-ordering of reality. Tsuno’s densely layered imagery employs a rich artificial color palette to interweave silhouettes of leaves and foliage.
An artificial flower installation by Reiss and a fake fur sculpture by Pankin excite the senses with slyly synthetic representations of organic color, form and texture. Reiss has assembled a collection of plastic flowers to inhabit the gallery; the caricature and exaggerated colors of the faux flora animates the concrete floor. With seamless techniques of integrating fake fur surfaces and glass eyes, Pankin invites viewers to look closely at a creation that appears to be looking all around you.
Bunn lives and works in Los Angeles and received her MFA from Claremont Graduate University. Her photography has been exhibited in numerous galleries in the Los Angles area and is presently featured in ‘Forever Now’ curated by David Pagel at East and Peggy Phelps Galleries, Claremont Graduate University.
Fields lives and works in Los Angeles and is represented by Kim Light/Lightbox of Los Angeles. She received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art (Mich.). Fields has exhibited in numerous shows in the United States and abroad, including The Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, the Melanee Cooper Gallery of Chicago, and Galerie Enholm Englehorn in Vienna, Austria.
Pankin works in Los Angeles and received his MFA from University of California, Los Angeles. Pankin is represented by Carl Berg Gallery of Los Angeles and his sculptures have been exhibited internationally at venues including Rubicon Gallery in Dublin, Ireland, ARCO’06 at Madrid, Spain, and Carl Berg Projects in Amsterdam, Holland.
Reiner studied the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles and Parsons School of Design (Paris). Reiner received the Lester Horten Award for Scenic Design in 2003 and has had solo exhibitions at galleries around the world, including in New York, Los Angeles, Munich and Milan.
Recipient of the 2009 College Art Association Distinguished Teaching of Art Award, and professor emeritus at Claremont Graduate University, Reiss was the coordinator of Painting’s Edge – Advanced Painting Resident Workshop in Idyllwild. Reiss’s extensive museum and gallery exhibition record notably includes Documenta 7 in Kassel, Germany.
Los Angeles native Tsuno received his MFA from Claremont Graduate University. His work was recently shown at both the Sam Lee Gallery and Happy in Los Angeles.
Opened in 1996, the Harris Art Gallery is recognized as a distinctive space for the exhibition of contemporary art by professional and student artists. Its mission reflects the institution’s commitment to diversity and quality in education by developing excellent contemporary art exhibitions for the university and local communities, providing students and others access to the wider art community, and confronting a diverse range of ideas as expressed through contemporary art and fostering a discourse around these issues.
To learn more about the exhibit or the Harris Gallery, call (909) 593-3511 ext. 4763. For directions to the university’s main campus and parking information, visit www.laverne.edu/about/maps-directions.
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