Two days before Valentine’s Day, City College’s Atkinson Gallery opened its doors to present a collection of dramatic and unique mixed media pieces, titled “Deep Color.”
The exhibition, curated by City College Associate Professor of Art Christopher Ulivo, brings together four California-based artists to share their diverse media and interesting methods of incorporating and using color in their work.
The dozen pieces carried familiarity in regard to their authorship. Beyond the four artists sticking pretty rigidly to their mediums of choice, the pieces themselves visually and emotionally connected with each other, which gave the exhibition an almost nostalgic air.
While the majority of the artwork on display used materials such as dyes, clay and pigmented slips, artist Nick Wilkinson, out of central California’s Los Osos, took a different approach with his pieces.
With placards reading “Untitled (Shell)” and simply “Untitled,” Wilkinson uses found objects such as trellis pieces, chunks of cut wood, hardware, and paint to form his sculptures.
Each artist involved took a different approach to the project and Lauren Goldenberg took a more textured route. Her use of handmade paper, dye, and the technique of relief sculptures gives her three pieces a visually grittier, raw, almost dirty feel.
It is slightly different in composition from Vanessa Chow’s inclusions in the exhibit. With careful, delicate use of cotton thread, dye, and fabric, her art shares an incredible vulnerability and softness one could associate best with a favored childhood blanket or nightlight.
Out of three submissions grounded in fabric work, Chow titles two pieces kindred to each other. “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous- after Ocean Vuong,” and “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous- after Ocean Vuong II” show to be a nod to the novel about a young Vietnamese-American boy trying to find where he fits into the world around him in the form of letters to his illiterate mother written by the mentioned Ocean Vuong, a Vietnamese-American poet, and author.
With every submitted piece upholding a three-dimensional aspect, Jackie Rines, hailing from São Paulo, Brazil, blows the concept out of the water. On the balcony of the Atkinson Gallery sits a large-scale ceramic sculpture. A colorful vase resembling coil pots covered in unique patterns and supporting a wilted bird of paradise flower, with its bloom resting defeated on the ground.
On the wall at the doorway sits a white placard with the title “This bird has flown,” clearly in connection to the type of flower, but further pushing an impression of a stale, abandoned, once homely space.
These four Golden State artists each integrate color into their works in unique and eye-catching ways, able to convey their messages through form, texture, medium, and scale, ultimately coming together to arrange a memorable peek into intimate corners of life and death.
Atkinson Gallery’s “Deep Color” opened to the public on Feb. 12 and will be in operation, free of charge, until March 20 every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
