Exhibition explores Signs Symbols and Dreams
University of La Verne group show featuring representational and abstract paintings
Signals is a group exhibition featuring paintings by Nick Aguayo, Greg Ito, Dion Johnson, Helen Lundeberg, Christine Nguyen, Annabel Osberg, and Kristopher Raos. Executed with rigor, grace, and a personal touch, the works included in this show may allude to signs, symbols, or dreams. Signals presents paintings of different shapes and sizes that range from figurative representation to color-focused abstraction, graphic precision to expressive gesture, up-beat tempo to calm meditation, and impressive scale to nuanced detail.
In Nick Aguayo’s painting, In the name of all the other participants, the interlocking shapes with colorful edges feel like a sonic puzzle – a visual geometry amplified by an arpeggiating energy. The parallelogram and triangle shaped canvases by Kristopher Raos have an auditory ingredient. Within Raos’s rich color fields, the onomatopoeic word “Boing” appears compositionally cropped and stylized like a comic book or advertising font. The hardedge abstraction of Helen Lundeberg and Dion Johnson is striking and crisp. Lundeberg’s color planes carefully align and create a dynamic exterior view and a mysterious interior space, while Johnson’s intricately layered canvas, which is influenced by Lundeberg’s work, alludes more to sensations and atmospheres. Also employing precision and clean edges, Greg Ito’s circular canvas, Time Flies, presents a fantastic journey with personal symbols. Drifting off into dreamland, Annabel Osberg and Christine Nguyen paint imaginary scenarios. Osberg’s imagery seems to honor spirits and conjure ghosts, and her narratives may reflect on the body’s relationship to a changing environment. The grand scale of Nguyen’s color field abstraction with silhouetted birds and flora simultaneously ascends up toward the ceiling and stretches onto the floor, welcoming viewers to take a closer look.
Signals emphasizes that art is participatory. Each piece transmits layers of meaning from its painted surface to the viewers’ optic receptors – these messages and sensations become part of a lively a visual conversation where gallery visitors are invited to look, interact, and discover.
The Harris Gallery is located across from the Abraham Campus Center at 2000 Second Street on the La Verne campus.
Media Note:
Images are available. Contact Dion Johnson at djohnson@laverne.edu
Gallery Hours:
Monday – Thursday 11:00 AM – 4:00 PM or by appointment
Admission:
Free
Reception:
February 13, 6:00 – 8:00 PM
