‘Elements’ in review
Art review by Simon Blattner | Special to The Sun
It’s a great show — have you seen it? Sonoma Valley Museum of Art’s winning streak continues unabated. “Contemplative Elements,” which opened at the SVMA in late December, is an all out winner. It’s not easy to follow a Richard Diebenkorn show curated by our own local artist, Chester Arnold, but Kate Eilertsen has done it in spades with this exhibition.
The show features the work of another well known Sonoman, artist and teacher Francis McCormack and Danae Mattes who lives and works in Berkeley. In addition, local digital curator Flynn O’Brien adds to his resume with a dynamite digital offering featuring Courtney Eagan and artist David Sullivan.
What is it that makes the SVMA space so unique? It accommodates so many different and diverse elements and artists’ approaches with ease. Just a few feet from our downtown Plaza, the gallery has a chameleon like personality. Everything changes every time a new exhibition goes up in the gallery. While the lighting could use some improvement, the floor, the walls and the panels upon which the art is hung gleam with the personality of each artist being shown. Lucky us.
In the case of McCormack and Mattes, their work is so completely different from each other that opposites naturally attract. It is the same effect one gets from two magnets coming together and pulling toward each other. McCormack’s lush use of paint and abstraction pair elegantly with the simple clay like material that makes up much of Mattes’ work. This must be what Eilertsen had in mind when she chose the two accomplished Bay Area artists. Both meditate on nature’s elements in different ways.
SVMA continues to honor its long held tradition of featuring mid-career Bay Area artists and these two artists have impressive resumes. McCormack has been teaching at the San Francisco Art Institute for many years. She has long shown at R B Stevenson in La Jolla and all over the Bay Area. At SVMA she has curated shows, but her work has never been exhibited here until now. It’s about time and we are rewarded by her best work, all created in the last few years. The large canvasses incorporate landscape designs and botanical forms and are radiant with color, filled with complications and meaning.
Mattes’ work examines changing landscapes with the use of water in eroding her clay like materials from the earth, and the relationship of landscape to the inner self. It is complex, arresting, and with the use of water, ever evolving. She is represented by the highly respected Dolby Chadwick gallery in San Francisco.
The juxtaposition of the two artists in the same space works well. They bring very different kinds of art together to explore nature, and it always reminds me of the diversity in our artistic universe.
It is somewhat of a joke that I would even try to review a digital art exhibition. Oh well… Flynn O’Brien brings together the talent of Courtney Eagan whose single-channel video installation depicts a Japanese magnolia maturing rapidly then losing its petals. It is riveting to watch and the reality of its growth and death is beautiful. David Sullivan gives us his digital work using animation, sound, sculpture, photography and interactivity to explore evolving relationships between people, technology and the environment. Take your time looking at this; it will be worthwhile and exciting. Maybe someday I will be digitally savvy and will get it too.
Simon Blattner is the past board president of SVMA, and the California College of the Arts.
