Architectural Models, Drawings and Images by Randall Stout


This exhibition presents a selection of models, drawings, and images, tracing the prolific career of Randall Stout. Randall Stout, FAIA, RAIC, AAA is the President and Principal-in-Charge of Los Angeles-based Randall Stout Architects, Inc. Since founding his practice in 1996, Stout has designed projects worldwide including prominent museums across North America. His projects are known for dynamic forms, state of the art technology, and environmental sustainability. Considered a visionary whose evocative design aesthetic consistently challenges architectural conventions, Stout creates environments that capture the unique composition of their natural surroundings, while transforming light, shadow, form, and materials into innovative architecture.

 Photo: Randall Stout, Steinhude Sea Recreational Facility, Steinhude, Germany, 2000

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vacancy: Paintings by Matt Condron


Beginning in his early twenties, Matt Condron has called New York City, rural Montana, Arizona, Seattle, San Francisco and even Mexico home.  It is partly from this nomadic life that Condron’s artistic sensibility has developed from.  A passionate observer, the 35mm camera was Condron’s first vehicle that gave voice to his unique and sensitive vision. Having spent many years as a photographer, Matt Condron is trained to recognize the importance of a moment or the preciousness of a fleeting opportunity.  He is captivated by the idea of emptiness, as both a suggestion of solitude and as a state rife with the possibility of change and fulfillment.  As a painter, he seeks out familiar, evocative scenes and concentrates on capturing the stillness of an empty room or vacant chair.  His paintings can be seen as solitary, or as simply aberrant pauses between moments of frantic activity. Ultimately, Condron creates scenes – part representation of real places, part invention from deep in his mind.  The openness of his works invites the viewer to share the moment of quiet with him.  By choosing places that seem to have been abruptly vacated, he attempts to awaken a connection to the moment before, or to the quietude he preserves inside himself in the form of memories. 

Matt Condron was born in 1967 in Simi Valley, CA.  He has exhibited in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, OR, Boston, New York and his work has been published in The Boston Globe Magazine (Critic’s Pick, July, 2010), The Artist’s Magazine, OTCT Crier, The Artist’s Magazine, Riviera Magazine, and American Art Collector.

Photo: Matt Condron, After Hours Foyer, 2012, oil on canvas, 34 x 24 inches.

 

 

 

Harry Wilson: The Museum Set

For over 35 years, photographer Harry Wilson has focused his work on travel experiences and his response to place. As an avid art, lover his travel excursions often led him to notable museums. But in a place where the art of picture taking is commonly forbidden, Wilson began to direct his gaze to the environments surrounding the museum walls. “Everything is a possible subject. The key is to remain open, receptive, with no preconceived ideas.”Mastering the use of black and white film photography, Wilson has been capturing the history, culture, architecture and design of museums all over the world. Museum Set features over 70 black and white photographs depicting scenes from the Museum of Ethnology in Vietnam to the Maritime Museum in Greece.

“The art of photography is simply about expressing yourself regarding what you see and feel. My photographs are rather varied, some areabout the act of seeing, some are studies of form or the other graphic elements. But organizing the frame is of utmost importance. I think of this as the geometry of the camera. But regardless of the actual subject matter, the photographs are usually about self and place, about being human, and the beauty and horror that we experience.”

Photo: Harry Wilson, Trees, Legion of Honor, San Francisco, CA, 2006, silver gelatin print, 8 x 12 inches.

 

 

 

 

“the Whey (way) n: to center”

Drawings by Amie T. Rangel

Amie T. Rangel is an artist rooted in traditional methodologies, with an observation-based practice.  Her current work investigates the repetitive structure and laboratory-like forms based from extensive research conducted at agricultural facilities.

Rangel’s experience in each facility presents a delicate balance of the sacred and the secular, restriction and protection, confinement and efficiency, authority and submission.  The organization of research and agricultural facilities and that of urban institutional spaces found in hospitals, factories, prisons, and schools not only serve their function, but speak of deeper social constructs.  The purpose of this body of work is not to find a definitive meaning, singular answer, or solution to the complex structure of institutional frameworks, but to raise awareness of spatial constructs within modern human society. The intentional lack of contrast and color leaves little reference as to when or where these spaces exist and how these spaces function. 

Amie T. Rangel graduated with a BFA in Drawing/Painting and Printmaking (Magna Cum Laude) from California State University in 2005. She furthered her studies at the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis, Indiana before receiving an MFA from the University of Alberta in Edmonton in 2009.

Photo: Amie Rangel-Illumination-I, 2011.

 The Bakersfield Museum of Art is excited to introduce you to another strong and informative collection of work. This set of shows will open on December 13, 2012 and close on March 10, 2013. Featured image is by Robert Pruitt, Free, 2011. Conte, charcoal, gold leaf, pastels on hand dyed paper, 50 x 38 inches

 

Embracing Diverse Voices: 80 years of African American Art
Embracing Diverse Voices is organized by the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, Michigan

Presented by: Aera Energy LLC

Sponsored by: Bakersfield Chapter The Links, Inc., Morgan & Gloria Clayton, Mr. Ron & Dr. Soraya Coley, Floyd & Horrigan, Law Offices of Jennifer Floyd, Occidental of Elk Hills, Inc., Chevron, San Joaquin Community Hospital, Alpha J. Anders, MD FCCP, Dr. & Mrs. G. B. Ha’eri, Sylvia Lopez, Attorney at Law and Wells Fargo Foundation

Embracing Diverse Voices explores the diversity of experience and artistic expression among American artists of African descent. Spanning 80 years, these works demonstrate a wide range of stylistic approaches and viewpoints. While some works offer a glimpse of an artist’s personal vision, others speak out as bold political and social calls to action. Common among these works—from James Van Der Zee’s portraits of Harlem men and women, to the divine humanity of Elizabeth Catlett’s Madonna, and Ron Adam’s homage to the master
printmaker Robert Blackburn—is the complex, but fundamental, expression of identity. These artists define their identity through such varied factors as gender, culture, history, race, and social status. Embracing Diverse Voices includes 64 works by 29 artists, including Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Richard Hunt, Lorna Simpson, Hughie Lee-Smith, Charles Henry Alston, James Van Der Zee, Kara Walker, Charles White, and Ernest C. Withers, plus Jacob Lawrence’s complete Legend of John Brown series.

Participating Artists:
Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Richard Hunt, Jacob Lawrence, Lorna Simpson, Gordon Parks, James Van Der Zee, Kara Walker, Charles White, and others.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 You, Me, Them: Mequitta Ahuja and Robert Pruitt

Patron: Aera Energy LLC  

You, Me, Them features the work of two contemporary artists of African descent whose work examines cultural identity through portraiture. As an African American and South Asian American woman, Mequitta Ahuja’s art embodies a culturally complex position. She works from the vantage point of both Western and Eastern depiction, ancient and contemporary. Her imagery harkens to the past, mythic and ancestral but never finds its direct referent. 

Robert Pruitt’s drawings demonstrate the complexity of black identity by combining contrasting signs and imagery of disparate black influences and aesthetics. He layers science fiction, hip-hop, comic books, and black political and social struggles into layered portraits of his friends and community.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 Texture of Place: Paintings by John Cosby and William Wray

Presented by:  Fred & Ginny Hamisch
Sponsored by: Gary & Nancy Sampson 

This exhibition celebrates two California painters who highlight a wide variety of California’s scenery, from expansive coastal shores to Bakersfield’s own backyard. While Wray’s mundane imagery comes to life through energetic brush strokes, Cosby’s simplified forms capture the complexity of light distinct to the west coast. Together the two create wondrous visions of California’s landscape. 

 Born in Hollywood, California in 1955, John Cosby was raised in the west.  At an early age he began to draw and paint and was lucky enough to have a grandmother who was an oil painter.  Cosby started traveling at an early age.  At 18 he was chosen as a communications advance-man for President Nixon and began to travel the globe, continuing in this capacity through the Ford Administration.  He met many interesting people and saw many things, but what most interested him most were the great works of art he encountered.  Upon his return to the California, Cosby began painting the sea and landscape of coastal California.  With a strong gallery response, his success as a painter quickly followed.

 Cosby currently resides and maintains a studio in Paso Robles California.  He works on location around the world and is represented by some of the finest galleries.  Cosby was a founding board member of the prestigious “Laguna Plein Air Painters Association,” a signature member of California Art Club.  Cosby was also a founder of the Laguna Beach Plein Air Painting Invitational held at the Laguna Art Museum.

After, a Nomadic childhood traveling the world (including Hong Kong) with his military family, William Wray began working in the animation business as a teen-ager eventually enrolling in The Art Students League in New York to study fine art in the academic tradition. Uninspired by the conceptually dominated fine art world of the eighties, William went back to work in comic books, animation and illustration we he felt his drawing ability was valued. He is best known for his painting style on the Ren and Stimpy Show, directing cartoons and his work in Mad Magazine.

After a concentrated series of oil painting workshops over the last 10 years and a maturing reformation of his realistic art style, William is influencing the current urban trend in fine art. William is living his theory that a realistic artist can make the best kind of abstract painter if they just loosen up enough while retaining a strong ability to draw and stylize. William has spent many years stripping away all his rendering ability into a more abstract style, panting the humble urban landscape subjects of California that he grew up with.

William has three collections of his paintings entitled “Dirty Beauty,” “Sparrow.” and “Cult of Beauty.” His latest book instantly sold out and a second edition is in the works. He is a member of LAPPA, the California Art club and the OIL Painters of America and the California Art Club. In 2008 William had a one-man show at the Bakersfield Museum of art and is slated for a new show there at the end of 2012. William has four art galleries: the Vault Gallery in Cambria, Ca, Annie Irwin fine art in Atlanta, Windrush in Sedona, Az and Q art Salon in Santa Anna, Ca. Profiled in July 2008 American Art Collector, The Artist Magazine March 2008 and the July ’09 Southwest Art.  Some of William’s contest wins:

Placed: 2008,2009 Ray Mar contest, Grand prizewinner: Paintings Finalist: Art Kudos International Art competition. Honorable Mention: LAPAPA Best of Plein Air 2008_Artist Choice Award: San Luis Obispo Plein Air Festival 2006_First place: Art Interview Magazine: Second Quarter 2005and 2010_Second place: 1st Annual 2005 Riverside Plein Air Paint-out. FineArtViews Art Competition repeated wins and place 2009 and 2010. 2011 First Place Urban Award California Art Club. Williams’s latest shows are big show with Ashley Wood at the 3A Gallery In Hong Kong at the end of April and as part of a 4-man show at the Q Art Salon in May.