Cory Sewelson

I am very pleased to have several new pieces in this show from my recent series, Fun House.

EL CAMINO COLLEGE ART GALLERY                        Hours:           

16007 Crenshaw Boulevard                                                Mon & Tues 8-2

Torrance, CA 90506                                                            Wed & Thurs 1-7:30

310-660-3010

PERSONAL MATTERS

Work by Said Abdelsayed, Garrett M. Brown, Carol Es, Satoe Fukushima,

Zeal Harris, Brenda Henriques, Sandra Low, Gina M., Gloria Plascencia,

Gretchen Potts, Christine Saldana, Cory Sewelson, Susan Sironi

February 13 – March 9, 2017 (closed February 20th, President’s Day)

Reception: Thursday, February 23, 7-9 p.m.

Artist’s Talk: Tuesday, February 28 at 1 p.m.

El Camino College Art Gallery is pleased to present the work of 13 Southern California artists in Personal Matters, an exhibition of personal narrative work. Emerging from a rich art historical tradition of works representing private experience – Frida Kahlo, Vincent Van Gogh and Max Beckmann to name a few- the artists in this exhibit depict their own experiences. In a time of emphasis on merchandising and mass media it seems particularly important to recognize individual lives, struggles, love, courage, humor and cultural differences as lived and portrayed on the personal level. This exhibition explores the realm of the intimate in a broad variety of media, creating an opportunity for the viewer to glimpse the individual artist’s circumstance and psyche.

• Said Abdelsayed presents modernistic brilliantly colored acrylic on canvas portraits of his life with his wife in the early days their romance in their native country, Egypt and of their subsequent immigration to the United States.
• Garrett M. Brown artist, actor and director, exhibits watercolors on paper of his mother and father, as he re-imagines their life, vacationing “on the Cape in 1956”. (GB)
• Carol Es artist and musician, presents an installation piece, The Exodus Project, featuring drawings and paintings created while on a meditative artist’s retreat in Joshua Tree, CA.
• Satoe Fukushima exhibits a book of intimate photographs of her un-romanticized experience of giving birth to a baby girl. The photographs and her description of the birth capture the fear and intensity of emotion she encountered along the way.
• Zeal Harris presents Home Remedies for Driving While Black, a series of poignant textile works with drawings, often autobiographical, “concerning the impact of police violence on interpersonal relationships.” (Z. H.)
• Brenda Henriques, designer and artist, explores memories of childhood in So Cal using life-sized human figures clothed in complex costumes made of an array of media from tea bags to latex gloves to represent elements of her past.
• Sandra Low exhibits a book and drawings from her series, Ma Stories in which she portrays humorous vignettes in comic book/graphic novel style, about her mother, highlighting cultural and generational differences between members of immigrant families.
• Gina M. who was born into a family of professional puppeteers, presents whimsical figures made of primarily of clay, that are embellished with recycled materials and paint. These figures contain elements of the artist’s memory.
• Gloria Plascencia exhibits black and white photographs of herself re-imagined as a street person. These images, from a series titled Have Compassion, are a tribute to her younger brother who died while living on the street.
• Gretchen Potts presents an installation dealing with personal memory. Potts connects over 4000 paper shipping tags, many inscribed with collected memories, into 3D swirling forms that reference the structure of the brain. Viewers are invited to write down a memory from childhood on available tags which become a part of the piece.
• Christine Saldana presents a group of exquisite funereal marionettes that represent specific members in her family and the Japanese traditions that they carried with them into their lives as American citizens.
• Cory Sewelson, artist and theme park designer, exhibits paintings on panel, that utilize architectural elements to represent both personal memories and broader collective assumptions about “the world and how we choose to live in it.”(C.S.)
• Susan Sironi presents altered books in which she contrasts her own size to the size of images in the illustrated editions of Gulliver’s Travels and Alice in Wonderland. Within the books she creates dimensional collages that depict outlines of parts of her own body.