JURIED ART SHOW TO FEATURE ‘VIEWS, VISIONS’

Montecito’s only annual juried art exhibition opens with a reception Thursday, May 20, 4-6 p.m. in Westmont’s Reynolds Gallery. “Views and Visions: Travelers” will be on display May 20 through June 24. Reynolds Galley will accept submissions from artists throughout Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties at an ingathering Saturday, May 15, 9 a.m. to noon.

The opening reception will include an awards ceremony announcing winners of the $1,000 first prize and other cash awards, chosen by juror Kent Butler, artist and professor at the MFA program at Azusa Pacific University in Los Angeles. This year, the featured alumnus artist is Joshua Cave ’08, a painter based in New York.

“Travelers” is the fifth annual Views and Visions exhibition, each featuring a Westmont alumnus. This is the fourth year the exhibition has been juried, and each year has seen increased numbers of participating artists. Previous themes included still life, shoes and interior space.

For information, please contact Sarah Squire at (805) 565-6162.

My inbox has been flooded with articles and press releases recently. This latest one is for a show of Rembrandt etchings in conjunction with a show of contemporary photographs by South African photographer Zwelethu Mthethwa. These extremely rare etchings have been touring the country for a while and make their next stop at the Reynolds Gallery at Westmont College. It is a remarkable exhibit to have at a small private college and pairing the etchings with these photos seems wonderfully ambitious. Make sure to mark you calendars for the opening on September 3rd. I hope to see you there.

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Etched in Time

Rembrandt’s Mastery Displayed in Santa Barbara

"Beggar Seated on a Bank" Image courtesy of the John Villarino collection.

“Sordid and Sacred: The Beggars in Rembrandt’s Etchings” will be on display in Reynolds Gallery at Westmont Thursday, Sept. 3, through Saturday, Oct. 31. Featuring 35 of Rembrandt’s etchings from the John Villarino Collection, the exhibition opens with a reception 4-6 p.m. Sept. 3 in the gallery, located at 955 La Paz Road, Santa Barbara, which is free and open to the public.

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669) created this series of etchings between 1629 and 1654. A common subject for the Dutch master throughout his career, beggars often informed his images of saints and other subjects, including himself. One well-known etching in the series is his self-portrait, “Beggar Seated on a Bank” from 1630.

Work by South African photographer Zwelethu Mthethwa, also on display, complements the theme of Rembrandt’s etchings. Mthethwa’s Contemporary Gladiators series depicts the lives of the urban poor in his homeland, providing a contemporary perspective on poverty.

This exhibition is the first that Director Judy L. Larson has organized for the gallery. Most recently the director of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., she joined the Westmont faculty in June 2008 and holds the R. Anthony Askew Chair in Art.

Zweletha Mthethwa, "Untitled" (Contemporary Gladiators series) (c) Zweletha Mthethwa

Reynolds Gallery is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. For information call (805) 565-6162. On Saturday, September 26, the gallery will participate in Smithsonian magazine’s Annual Museum Day, which invites Smithsonian subscribers to museums across the country.

A nationally-ranked liberal arts college, Westmont provides a rigorous academic program set in a Christ-centered community. Founded in 1937, the school enrolls 1,200 students on a wooded, ocean-view campus in Santa Barbara. For more information, visit www.westmont.edu.

Interior Space Takes Shape

May 18th, 2009

Photo © Cheyenne Ellis

Montecito’s only annual juried art exhibition opens with a reception Thursday, May 21, 4-6 p.m. in Reynolds Gallery. Views and Visions: Interior Space, on display May 21 through June 26, gathers submissions from artists throughout Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. The reception will include an awards ceremony announcing winners of the $1,000 first prize and other cash awards, chosen by juror Elyse Gonzales.

Photographer Cheyenne Ellis is the featured artist of the exhibition. After graduating from Westmont in 2000, she studied at Brooks Institute of Photography before apprenticing under established photographers in Los Angeles and New York. Since 2005 she has worked independently shooting catalog and editorial images for clients including Volcom, New Line Cinema and Entertainment Weekly. For this exhibition she photographed outdoor spaces in Argentina, Louisiana, New York and elsewhere that convey a sense of interior enclosure.

Gonzales is the curator of exhibitions at the University Art Museum at UC Santa Barbara. Prior to coming to UCSB in May 2008, Gonzales was the assistant curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. She will consider broad interpretations of the theme from literal building interiors to psychological, social or other conceptual forms of space.

“Interior Space” is the fourth annual Views and Visions exhibition, each featuring a Westmont alumnus. This is the third year the exhibition has been juried, and each year has seen increased numbers of participating artists. Previous themes include still life and shoes.

Reynolds Gallery is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays. For directions to campus, visit the college’s Web site at www.westmont.edu. For more information, contact (805) 565-7140 or nprice@westmont.edu.