Visual & Performing Arts: Art Gallery
THE ANTELOPE VALLEY COLLEGE ART GALLERY PRESENTS
From the Cloud Lab: Works by Melinda Smith Altshuler
Exhibition Dates: August 23 – September 17, 2010
Opening Reception: Wednesday, September 1, 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Artist’s Talk 7:15 p.m.
The Antelope Valley College Art Gallery is proud to open its 2010 Fall season withFROM THE CLOUD LAB, an installation of sculpture and painting by Melinda Smith Altshuler. Altshuler’s glowing cloud forms are suspended from the ceiling, transforming the gallery space into an aerial chamber. Crafted from tea-stained teabags, paper, repurposed chicken wire, and light, the translucent sculptures appear to drift, some clouds ascending high while a low hanging cloud rains crystal drops. The weightless viewing experience is grounded by a wall of Altshuler’s cloud paintings which evoke the installation’s sensations of motion and space on canvas.
FROM THE CLOUB LAB provokes questions about our shared physical and psychological relationship to nature. By using unusual repurposed materials, Altshuler’s says her clouds “reflect the reuse of natural materials in nature herself.” The sculptures remind us that “just as clouds are recyclers, so can we be as citizens with the re-use of water as grey water and materials.” Altshuler further explains that “the translucent nature of the sculptures as well as the literal composition of clouds are site-specific to this gallery in California’s high desert, where water is such a precious resource.”
Altshuler’s materials reflect her attraction to the theme of translucency as honesty. Hanging above the viewer, we are aware of these translucent bodies as containers whose contents are both exposed and obscured, intimate and distant. Placing the viewer in the sky, the installation brings us unnervingly close to our shared associations with clouds as carriers of whimsy, nourishment, inspiration, and destruction.
Melinda Smith Altshuler has exhibited extensively throughout the West Coast and internationally. In California, she has worked as a Fine Arts instructor, lecturer, curator, and gallery director. She has also acted as the director of the Los Angeles artist’s organization SITE and as a contributing editor to Umbrella magazine.
The Art Gallery is located at 3041 West Avenue K in building FA1, the Fine Arts Building, in the Fine Arts Quad on the west side of the Antelope College Valley Campus.
EXHIBITION AND GALLERY EVENTS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Antelope Valley College Art Gallery:
3041 West Avenue K
Lancaster, CA 93534
TEL (661) 722 6300, extension 6215
Gallery Hours: Mon – Thurs. 9 a.m. – 9 p. m.
Fri. 12 p.m. – 9 p.m., Sat. 11 a.m. – 4 p.m
Upon request 3 business days before the event, reasonable
accommodation will be provided to facilitate the participation of
covered individuals with disabilities.
Call 661.722.6360 (voice)
or 661.722.6362 (TDD).