Category: mixed-media

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Grace Munakata Biology of Flight at Anglim/Trimble

Grace Munakata, Curious Cloud, 2022, Acrylic, wax pastel on panel, 37 1/2 x 48 in.

Grace Munakata “Biology of Flight” at Anglim/Trimble

How does one define “abstract art?” Some feel that an abstract painting should not include any recognizable objects, while others suggest that it is the conceptual underpinning of a work, the way in which the artist approaches the canvas, that makes it abstract, rather than the eventual presence, or absence, of objects. The late John Baldessari, an influential multi-disciplinary artist and art professor, presented an interesting exercise to his students at UC San Diego. Each was given an abstract image, one completely devoid of any discernible objects, with the assignment to go find and photograph this image in the real world. Almost without exception, the students were successful.

Falling squarely into the realm of abstract work grounded in reality is that of painter Grace Munakata, whose current exhibition “Biology of Flight” at Anglim/Trimble presents a range of small and medium-scaled paintings, collages, and works on paper and panel. Munakata studied at UC Davis under Wayne Thiebaud, who became a mentor and friend. In a 2001 interview with Manneti Shrem Museum’s Associate Curator Susie Kantor in conjunction with the exhibition Wayne Thiebaud Influencer a New Generation, Munakata recalled Thiebaud’s belief that “painting is an intellectual inquiry, finding out about as many aspects of human experience as possible,” and his description of the studio as “a shared laboratory for experience.” Munakata went on to a her own distinguished career as a professor, teaching at Cal State East Bay (formerly Cal State Hayward) as well as sustaining a remarkable visual art practice.

Munakata grew up in the Central Valley, into a Nisei Japanese family which had endured internment during World War II. Her family’s experience undoubtedly colored her perceptions of the world, suggesting it as a place of mixed signals and shifting planes. Her mother was a seamstress, and the influence of her love of fabric, the feeling of swatches of different material and patterns, is clearly felt, as well as the influence of different cultures coming together. Descriptions of her family home include images of her father creating sumi-e works on the kitchen table, her mother spreading fabric and patterns on the floor, and décor ranging from gestural senryu poetry panels and elaborate Japanese dolls in lacquered boxes, to an Asian version of Santa Claus, all mixed in with a painting of the Golden Gate Bridge. With an eclectic mix of aesthetics, one senses in the work her openness to inspiration and source material of all kinds.

Curious Cloud (2022) hinges on an amorphous violet shape, the cloud, just left of center. Other forms may or may not suggest additional clouds, mountains, trees, or other natural forms. A rough oval is bisected into a rust orange on one side, the other broken into a floral pattern in blue-violet, cream, and yellow. An underlying checkerboard makes a subtle allusion to the Minimalist grid, and the Hofmannesque push and pull of the forms on the picture plane draw our eye in and out. What draws one into the work initially, in addition to it’s glorious color, are the dazzling visual pyrotechnics of her many overlapping compositional devices. We may think of the work of Julie Mehretu, using more hard-edged, architecturally-inspired images to construct a visual field of similar complexity and depth. Mt. Govardan and Wilson’s Snipe (2023) uses a similar strategy, balancing objects with the non-objective, careful rendering here and there, particularly of the bird, and washy patches of color. Contrasts of light and dark, blurry and focused, keep us engaged and create a satisfying sense of mystery.

Grace Munakata, Mt. Govardan and Wilson’s Snipe, 2023, Acrylic, wax pastels on panel
36 x 47 in.

Harbuz, 7 X Down, 8 X Up (2023), inhabited by insistent bumblebees, smiling pumpkins, and frowning gnomes, immerses us in the realms of fairy tale and fantasy, with a specific reference to Sankaku “Triangle” Daruma, Japanese dolls symbolizing resilience. Munikata displays an enduring playful spirit and willingness to, as Thiebaud advised, embrace the ridiculous, even to “risk artistic suicide.” Among her diverse practices and strategies, she also cites the importance of randomness and the gestural impulse.

Grace Munakata, Harbuz, 7 x Down, 8 x Up, 2023, Acrylic, wax pastels on panel
41 x 48 in.

Munakata also presents many smaller paintings and collages without distinct objects, “pure abstractions,” which are intensely satisfying. Deep in the Ground (2021) presents rich yet muted colors and quirky shapes overlaid with careful tracings of pattern dancing across the panel. The joyous collage Susan’s Circus (2019) offers deep purple and brilliant yellow bands anchoring an irregular rectangle; playful dots suggest balls and juggling, as well as the yin-yang symbol.

With art a highly subjective realm, ultimately abstraction, like beauty, may lie in the eye of the beholder. As with many attempts to define or quantify aesthetic qualities, words fall short of experience. In the work of Munakata, a mixture of influences and techniques, layers of imagery and gestural marks, combine in satisfying compositions highly abstract—yet suggesting a diaristic record of a life of intellectual inquiry.

Barbara Morris

Grace Munakata “Biology of Flight” will close Saturday, December 23 at Anglim/Trimble, SF.

Anglim/Trimble

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Allow Nothing to Worry You: Inez Storer and Andrew Romanoff at Gallery 16

Photo by Todd Pickering

Allow Nothing to Worry You

The recent exhibition at Gallery 16 in SF of work by Inez Storer and her late husband Andrew Romanoff presented a touching and bittersweet journey through time and place. Titled Allow Nothing to Worry You, the show pairs Storer’s unique brand of Magic Realism with Romanoff’s quirky and whimsical works.

A larger-than-life photograph of the pair greets viewers upon arrival, a mural-sized enlargement of a scene at the couple’s bucolic home in Inverness. Romanoff, a dashing figure in a striped shirt and ascot, is on the right, while Storer, an intense and vibrant figure on the left crackles with energy. But the punctuation point is where their hands are gently joined in a tender clasp.

Storer is the more sophisticated artist of the pair. Her formal art education included studies at Art Center Los Angeles, San Francisco Art Institute, UC Berkeley, Dominican University, and SF State, where she obtained her master’s degree. She taught art at SFAI for many years, as well as at Sonoma State, SF State, College of Marin, and numerous other colleges and art schools. She also ran the Lester Gallery in Inverness, while teaching and raising a blended family of six kids.

Allow Nothing to Worry You Installation Shot all photos courtesy Gallery 16

Storer’s work pairs an unerring eye for color and composition with a wicked sense of humor, filtered through a lens of social and political conscience. Drawing strongly on narratives inspired by found objects, iconic subject matter often includes romantic female imagery, Matisse-inspired flowers and still life objects, references to world politics, and environmental issues. With such a busy life and household, the fluidity of the collage medium enabled Storer to create her art when the opportunity presented itself.

Romanoff’s personal history has a strong intersection with that of modern civilization, as great nephew of Tsar Nicholas II, deposed and executed by Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution, one might say in his case “the personal is political” is proven true in spades. He grew up in Great Britain, on the grounds of Windsor Castle, in a place with the beguiling name of “Frogmore.” While not allowed to consort with the royals, they did occasionally bump into each other in the garden. After serving in the British Navy in WWII, as a young man, Romanoff moved to the States at the encouragement of his cousin, he subsequently had to learn to fend for himself using his wits and his strength to get by.

Andrew Romanoff, New Boy at School, Acrylic paint and pen on polystyrene mounted to spray painted panel, 5.5″ x 6.75”

Inez and Andrew met and fell in love, introduced by the cousin, Igor, who lived in West Marin, and the rest is history. They raised a large blended family in Inverness. Andrew discovered his own artistic talents, and became focused on the medium of Shrinky Dinks®, a children’s craft material that reduces in size when baked in the toaster oven, one which seemed somehow well-suited to convey his unique memories and impressions of the world around him. The company provided him with a lifetime supply. (More information on Andrew’s life and work is found on this site at Remembering Andrew Romanoff.)


Inez Storer, Telepathy, 2023, Mixed media on panel , 24” x 36”

Storer had grown up in Los Angeles, with her father, who worked in the film industry, offering her a look at the backlot and underbelly of the glittering fantasies of the silver screen. Forties era films, with their glamorous women, suave men, and convoluted plots, inflect much of the aesthetic of the work. Her multi-faceted dad was also a pilot, and his international adventures add another layer of complexity to the work. Even more significant was Storer’s discovery, as an adult, that she was not, in fact, Catholic, as she had been led to believe. During a time when it was dangerous to admit, her family had hidden its Jewish faith from even its own members.




Inez Storer, The Ordinary Life of Natalia Ortiz, 2010, Oil paint and collage on panel 52” × 40”

The Ordinary Life of Natalia Ortiz (2010) makes a statement about the lives of all women, how behind the calm facade of a “normal” woman’s life there are always buried secrets, hidden intrigues, loves lost or found. A box of letters, purloined from her neighbor’s garage, set the stage for a narrative about one of these clandestine affairs, their flowing script sets up a lovely collage element on the lower edge of the canvas. A beautiful, mysterious woman stands in for Natalia, while her elusive suitor emerges from the upper edge of the canvas. A bit of detective work yields the result that a woman named Natalia Ortiz was, in fact, a 40s-era film star from Mexico.




Andrew Romanoff, A Day at the Races, 2004, Acrylic paint and pen on polystyrene mounted to spray painted panel, 9.5” x 9.5”

A Day at the Races (2004) suggests one of Romanoff’s iconic scenes from childhood. Here, a young lad in a stroller implores his father to push him faster, echoing the racetrack scene behind him. Scenes from Andrew’s own childhood, many included in the book The Boy Who Would be Tsar, published by Gallery 16 in 2006, have a particular poignancy that is well-suited to his chosen medium of Shrinky Dinks®. In other images, like 9 Second Limit No-Ogling Law (1995), the childlike drawing in juxtaposition with a mature theme feels more loaded; as Storer remarked, “Andrew had no filters.”




Andrew Romanoff, No Ogling, 1995 Acrylic paint and pen on polystyrene mounted to spray painted panel, 10.5” x 10.5”

The mingling of romance, intrigue, royalty, Hollywood movies, Pop art, and naive art blend and intermix to create a fantastic world of illusion firmly grounded in reality and personal narrative. Like many great celebrity pairs, say Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, the duo brought out the best in each other; obviously Storer, a strong-minded woman, is no femme fatale, and Romanoff, who worked as a laborer and craftsperson much of his life, had a nuanced presentation. But, yes, he exuded a royal presence, and the pair together created a gestalt of grit and grace that was unstoppable. It seems as if their symbiosis shifted back and forth as needed, with one providing a rudder of stability when the other began to veer off course.

While Romanoff’s work remained largely a hidden talent outside of the Bay Area, Storer’s work has been widely acclaimed. They enjoyed traveling, in particular making several memorable trips to Russia, where Andrew was greeted by many as the sole surviving heir to the monarchy traveling incognito. Storer completed a remarkable series after one trip, conflating experiences of the thin veneer of normalcy and elegance being at the time displayed in certain settings—the Russian palaces they toured—and her early assimilation of the concept that the glamour of Hollywood was really all just paste.

Gallery 16’s presentation is a welcome tribute to the amazing lives and work of these two remarkable individuals. Romanoff passed away in 2021 at the age of 98, but Storer remains vibrant and active to this day. At Storer’s talk with Griff Williams near the end of the exhibition’s run, she commented that it was good Andrew had not lived to see Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, while the pair both feared such an eventual outcome, it would have made it no easier to take. With dry humor and unfailing deftness, each in their own way has made an indelible mark on the Bay Area art scene.

Barbara Morris

Allow Nothing to Worry You closed in May at Gallery 16, SF.

https://gallery16.com/

Inez Storer, Fear, 1992 Oil on panel 18.25” x 15.75”
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Andean Weaving Tradition art Bolivia Indigenous Cultures mixed-media Native American Culture painting Textile Art Weaving

Miguel Arzabe Cóndor de Cuatro Cabezas/Four-Headed Condor

Miguel Arzabe – Installation view 1

As coronavirus restrictions ease here in the SF Bay Area, it is quite exhilarating to be able to go out to galleries and see art once again in person. I visited Miguel Arzabe’s exhibition “Cóndor de Cuatro Cabezas/Four Headed Condor” twice, once masked, before the opening day of June 15, and again unmasked, more recently, to dig a little deeper into the work. Johansson Projects was filled with an array of brightly colored, two-dimensional objects displayed on the walls, as well as a sculptural installation. From a distance one might not initially pick up on the techniques the artist employs, perhaps imagining him using tape to grid off his canvas. And that wouldn’t really be so far from the mark, as Arzabe’s art practice at one point did rely upon the exhaustive use of tape, which helped motivate his current, more unusual practice of working with weaving strips of canvas or paper.

The wall-mounted works fall into two categories, works of woven canvas, mounted on traditional wooden stretcher bars, and works of woven paper, hung on wooden dowels. The kind of obsessive and detail-oriented structure of the works hints at a nimble mind, with a fine grasp of many variables at once and an ability to problem-solve structural or mechanical problems as they arise. Perhaps it may come as no surprise to learn that Arzabe, while paying deep homage to his Bolivian roots and indigenous cultures, is trained as an engineer, with a Master’s Degree in Fluid Dynamics.

Miguel with Quemado

Arzabe morphed from engineer to artist many years ago, picking up an MFA from UC Berkeley along the way, and apparently hasn’t looked back. He has compiled a lengthy résumé, with numerous international exhibitions and museum shows, as well as residencies and installations at the likes of Google, Facebook and YouTube. Jill D’Alessandro, curator of textiles at the de Young Museum, spoke with Arzabe at the gallery last weekend, an event also live-streamed on Instagram. They had initially met the artist when the artist held a residency at the museum in 2016.

When D’Alessandro presented the artist with an introductory question, he prefaced his response first with his thanks to those present, then asking all to reflect on the fact that they were currently on Ohlone soil. This shifted the dynamics of the talk to a different wavelength, and one began to sense how Arzabe might look at the world.

Five of Arzabe’s works are on, or of, canvas, in a variety of systems that combine cutting, weaving and stretching the fabric, upon which the artist has already painted. Two 20th century modernist painters provided reference material, the artist reinterpreting their works in his own paintings, which are later sliced and woven together. In some one canvas was woven into a work already on the stretchers, in others the weaving was stretched over the bars after completion.

Miguel Arzabe Cosme 2021 Woven acrylic on canvas 50 “x 46”

Cosme (2021) bears the name of the artist’s father, as well as referencing the cosmos. Shapes flicker with rough, torn-appearing edges, navy blue toward center with brighter colors, orange, violet and phthalo blue, toward edges. A border is formed by lighter, cream-colored areas on top, bottom and right edges of the canvas. Some areas have longer vertical bands interwoven with shorter horizontal strips, and vice-versa. D’Alessandro and Arzabe discussed how he likes to turn his work during its making, in a painterly fashion, rather than working with a set warp and weft. Also unlike traditional weavers, Arzabe works intuitively, rather than following a set pattern. Feeling very organic, its snippets of abstract form have a somewhat Kandinsky-like energy.

Miguel Arzabe Quemado (detail)

Arzabe, whose parents moved to the US before he was born, returns fairly frequently to Bolivia to visit his ancestral home, and see relatives who still live there. At an outdoor market he discovered some vintage pieces of weaving, marked with holes and stains accrued in the passage of time, and these have provided inspiration for some of his motifs. He later discovered a reference book on Andean textiles, learning the meaning of a number of the animal symbols used in the designs. In Andean culture, many such mythical creatures are depicted and inform the legends passed down over the generations. One, which he had mistaken for a crab, was in fact a four-headed condor. The exhibition title, this phrase also alludes to four energies joined in the work, the two modernist painters, Arzabe himself, and ultimately the viewer.

During his talk, an audience member posed the question of precisely which two modernist artists were involved, but Arzabe demurred on a response. A colleague, one who also references other artists, had advised him that once he said it, he “couldn’t take it back…and that it would be all anyone would want to talk about.”

Miguel Arzabe Ti Quiero Inti 2021 Woven acrylic on canvas 48 “x 60”
Miguel Arzabe Ti Quiero Inti (detail)

Ti Quiero Inti (2021)refers to the Incan sun god, as well as the artist’s daughter, also named Inti. A central triangular shape in pale blue hues is flanked by arcs and funnel shapes in hot pink and burnt orange, suggesting sky and mountains. A band of brilliant yellow snakes down from the top of the canvas just off center, about to the midway point. This vibrant work suggests not only the artist’s love for his daughter, but for nature as well; it also suggests the work of Marsden Hartley.

Miguel Arzabe Cuniraya 2021 Woven acrylic on Yupo 89 “x 48”

Many of the works incorporate Yupo paper, a synthetic, polypropylene-based paper that is archival and extremely durable. Cuniraya (2021) is an imposing piece of woven acrylic on Yupo. Eighty-nine inches high, it is hung on a wooden dowel suspended from flat metal hooks screwed into the wall, lending it the feeling of a traditional tapestry or other textile art form. Curvilinear forms, evoking Jean Arp, break up into small squares where bits of weaving peek through, as well as larger squares that create a modernist grid on the lower third. The sleek Yupo material also creates an interesting contrast to the traditional craft references.

Miguel Arzabe En El Ojo el Cóndor 2021 Woven acrylic on Yupo 46 “x 60.5”

The striking En El Ojo el Cóndor (2021) features a central area of cadmium red, with wing-like forms in orange and pink, dissolving into background. A drab grey-green surrounds this, punctuated with a smattering of Matisse-like stars on the left. A fringe of white at the bottom creates an insistent energy, as intersecting diagonals meet in a central “v” configuration. Arzabe may be referencing 20th century painters, but his palette appears very 21st century, with acid hues and oversaturated values that somehow convey a digitally-informed perspective. Also, the persistent emergence of individual squares, created by the weaving process, simultaneously evokes the building block of our contemporary world of digital images, the pixel.

A sweeping angular installation work, Alas (2021) of strips of warm-hued, painted canvas connects the two sides of the gallery space, passing through the archway, and anchoring to wooden supports on the floor and high up the wall. The curved edge where the seven bands wrap and turn the corner before descending is a dramatic moment. Shadows on wall and floor add to the impact of the immersive experience.

Arzabe’s work is very much of this moment, reflecting a combination of influences and concerns, a mingling of materials and techniques that intertwine the ancient and the modern, the physical, mental and spiritual realms as well coming into play. Created during the time of COVID, it is infused as well with an undercurrent of uncertainly, wariness. Reflecting on that aspect, the artist stated that he found immersion in his complex process allowed him to focus his energy into something positive, and it is that resilient spirit of hope which resonates throughout.

Barbara Morris

Miguel Arzabe En El Ojo el Cóndor (detail) 2021

Miguel Arzabe Cóndor de Cuatro Cabezas/Four-Headed Condor at Johansson Projects through July 24

https://johanssonprojects.com/portfolio/miguel-arzabe/