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[caption id="attachment_4921" align="alignleft" width="150"] Courtney Conlon[/caption] The 50+ photographs in Courtney Conlon's new show at Cal State Fullerton's Pollack Library are at first glance reminiscent of Ryan McGinley's embrace of nature as a site of freedom, or Wolfgang Tillman's intimate documentation of his friends in real-life situations. However, Conlon is not interested in these kinds of comparisons or definitions, this is made clear by Conlon's stark truisms found spread throughout the opposite side of the gallery from where the majority of the works are hung. Conlon instead...

21 August, 2013 /

Currently showing at the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Ana, the exhibit Embrace is comprised of artwork by Kim Tucker, Michael Giancristiano and Matjames Metson; curated by Katherine Huntoon. This show illustrates the power of a curator's voice to bind seemingly unrelated works together under one banner.  In the case of Embrace we are asked to notice how each of these artists lovingly and meticulously rescue the abandoned or overlooked to create highly emotional works that become much greater than the sum of their...

28 February, 2013 /

Tracy C. Teran A recent exhibition at the Expo Arts Center by emerging artists in the South Bay questions our relationship with time and the slippery definition of the immediate present. Curator Hilary Norcliffe established four types of Now’s to organize the diverse works in a variety of media. However, the exhibition’s strength is the ability of the works to operate between these categories. The first category Norcliffe identified includes documentary-type work, evidence or records of a past event. Jocelyn Foye’s five painted, polyurethane resin molds poignantly...

22 October, 2012 /

  Nomads have no history, they only have geography. – Gilles Deleuze   French poststructuralist Gilles Deleuze described himself as a philosopher of geography. Deleuze preferred metaphors of territory and with Felix Guattari developed the concept of lines of flight. Lines of flight could be considered shifts in the trajectory of a narrative that escape a force or power. Deleuze & Guattari where interested in diagraming these lines of power and maybe more interested in finding places of mutation where power could bend and lines of flight to...

06 September, 2012 /

 As the new art season is set to begin the OC Art Blog will be doing several Gallery Spotlight's introducing our readers to our many exciting local gallery's and their respective programs. First up is an interview with Brett Rubbico who opened Brett Rubbico Gallery in 2009. Brett Rubbico Gallery will be opening an exhibition of work by David Michael Lee on Saturday September 8th. The opening will run from 7 to 10pm. We hope to see you there. Now the interview: OCAB:  Why don’t we...

01 September, 2012 /

Santa Ana, CA. If you are a regular Santa Ana visitor, then you may have heard of or been to The Road Less Traveled Store when it was on Main Street, just off the 5 freeway. But the once easily ignorable RLT store has been newly revamped in it's new home the Artist's Village in downtown Santa Ana. The RLT store started in 2005 as the brainchild of Delilah Snell, who wanted to see something different in her Orange County community. Snell rented a 500-sq. ft....

13 August, 2012 /

Laguna Beach, CA  Laguna Art Museum kicks off its new contemporary art program ex·pose with an exhibition of works by Peter Bo Rappmund (b. 1979). This is Bo Rappmund’s first solo exhibition at a museum. Working mainly in film, video, photography, and sound, he is showing several photographs, along with three films: Psychohydrography (2010, HD, color, sound, 60 minutes); Vulgar Fractions (2011, HD, color, sound, 30 minutes); and Tectonics (2012, HD, color, sound, 60 minutes). This exhibition is the world premiere of Tectonics. Bo Rappmund’s working process is a lengthy one, recording...

13 July, 2012 /

[caption id="attachment_4094" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="The Cut-Off Men"][/caption] Santa Ana, CA.  Downtown Santa Ana Artist’s Village gets a kick in the contemporary art butt with newest creative addition, Grand Central Art Center’s (GCAC) new Director and Chief Curator, John Spiak. Spiak is a whirlwind of creative energies, and his expertise in Relational Aesthetics and Social Practice are giving the Artist’s Village a transformative new take on the art scene in Orange County. Spiak is bringing in artists from all over the world, to engage and exchange with the...

28 June, 2012 /

Hello All! I wanted to let you know that local curators Martha Lourdes Rocha & Martin Corigan need your road trip photos for their upcoming exhibition titled Common Tread that will open at the Begovitch Gallery at CSU Fullerton on September 8th. Please help them out and get your favorite road trip photos in an art show. They can be contacted via the Common Tread Facebook Page. Thanks!...

19 June, 2012 /

New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz once said that the alchemy of good curating amounts to placing one work of art near another, leaving each intact, and in the process creating a third thing. This third thing and the two original things then trigger cascades of thought and reaction. I was reminded of this idea after viewing the wonderful exhibition Gerit Grimm: Beyond the Figurine now running at the Long Beach Museum of Art through July 8th. In this enjoyable exhibit the Long Beach Museum...

15 June, 2012 /

  Emulex Corporation is usually a computer parts manufacturer based in Orange County, but this year Emulex has taken an interest in spreading their wealth-- with their never-ending supply of creative materials, otherwise known as e-waste, and their passion for Orange County art, this computer parts company has partnered up with Cal State Fullerton to create The Art of Convergence, a sculpture competition featuring Emulex parts and products and CSUF sculpture students. The Art of Convergence supports recycling, artistic experimentation, community participation, and good old fashioned creativity....

18 May, 2012 /

Deciding to devote your life to making music or another artistic endeavor has probably always been a difficult decision that entailed making some personal sacrifices. These days the decision to pursue music feels particularly hard, because while technology makes it so we can easily write, record and put music out on the internet, there are seemingly less ways to earn money through songwriting. While I am a firm believer that we should always follow our passions because it makes us live our most rich and vital life,...

04 May, 2012 /

So we had a little relaunch reception for the OC Art Blog last Saturday night, it was a great time. Thank you to the OC Art Blog writing team, and our friends and the OC art fans that came out to support. Special thanks to Memphis restaurant for hosting, David Michael Lee for heaps of help, and Sarah, Suzanne, and Joy for the great art on the walls. Here's a short video of the event. ...

12 April, 2012 /

Pacific Standard Time is closing at the end of this month and with Southern California artists on the mind OCMA is continuing the trend with a large exhibition dedicated to Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park Series. The  body of work spans over two decades (1967-1988) and is named after Diebenkorn’s studio in the Ocean Park neighborhood of Santa Monica where the abstract expressionist works were created. [caption id="attachment_3578" align="aligncenter" width="312" caption="Ocean Park #27, 1970, Oil on canvas"][/caption] The comprehensive OCMA exhibit encompasses eight galleries with approximately 80 works...

05 April, 2012 /

The OC Art Blog is hosting a re-launch party for it’s website in the back room of Memphis at the Santora on Saturday April 7th from 7-10PM during the Santa Ana Art Walk. The OC Art Blog is dedicated to the Orange County art community and has re-launched with a new format, new features and new writers. Enjoy drinks, appetizers, art by Suzanne Walsh, Sarah Walsh, Joy Shannon and Natasha Shah all while learning more about the new OC Art Blog. The OC Art Blog was...

04 April, 2012 /

This edition of Beyond the Orange Curtain is coming to you from Anchorage, AK. While here to catch the Iditarod and basically just see Alaska, we had the opportunity to participate in Anchorage's first Friday art walk. One stand-out from the walking tour exposing us to a slice of Anchorage's cultural life, was the work of Anchorage based artist Erin Pollock. A favorite pastime of mine is people watching, and Erin Pollack is a pro at the art of people watching. Pollock traverses the many coffee...

09 March, 2012 /

Los Angeles, CA  At the 100th Annual CAA Conference in downtown Los Angeles, I got a chance to sit and listen to a panel of women that could impress even the most haughty of elite art folks with their hard work, dedication, and professional experience. Among these women, Carrie Yury knocked my socks off with her helpful advice and personal experience in the art world. Carrie Yury, a professor at CSUF, an occasional writer for Artillery Magazine, and a creative photographer, and art world professional--Yury is...

06 March, 2012 /

[caption id="attachment_3407" align="aligncenter" width="545" caption="Pacific Building Interior, Studio 213 (photos by Sherwood Souzankari)"]   Sometimes I can be a European-elitist, chiming into many political debates about health care, homelessness, college tuition costs, or funding for the arts with sentences that start with "Well, in Europe…" Truth is there are plenty of things that the United States can learn from Europe. My excuse for saying so is that I am actually European. I am first generation Irish to be raised in the US, and I spent much of...

01 March, 2012 /

[caption id="attachment_3121" align="alignnone" width="545" caption="Joy Shannon and the Beauty Marks performing in 2011. From left: Joy Shannon on harp, Andy Zacharias on bass, Sean Wallace on guitar, and Graham Spillman on drums. (photo by Matt Frantz.)"][/caption] I have never separated the arts into sections. The music I make sounds like how my visual art looks and vice versa. For my bachelors degree, I created a specialized major which included visual art, theatre, and music because I could not choose just one of the arts to focus...

13 February, 2012 /