Camarillo, Calif., Jan. 20, 2015 – CSU Channel Islands senior Meghan Sheetz is due to become a new mother in March. Her new role is one of the concepts the Art major explores with her exhibit, “Reaching for the Skies,” a show created with bottles of different shapes, sizes and colors.
“I’ve created a space full of bottles that celebrate my female perspective and the many roles I play as woman, artist, domestic partner and soon-to-be mother,” Sheetz said. “The form itself has human elements. You talk about the neck, the shoulder of the bottle.”
Sheetz’ work is appearing on the Grad Wall of an upcoming exhibition in CI’s Napa Hall featuring the works of professional artists Jeff Page and Sommer Roman called “Logical Elsewhere.” Page and Roman are both edgy artists who express themselves with an unlikely mix of grit, glitter, grass, paint, fur and torn clothing among other materials.
“I felt their art had commonalities and interesting differences at the same time,” said CI Art lecturer and gallery director Christophe Bourely, who described their art as visceral and textured.
Page, a second year Masters of Fine Arts candidate at UC Santa Barbara, and Roman, who received her MFA from UCSB in 2014, both let the materials and the process guide them to the finished work—which is called process-oriented art.
“There are many aspects to my work, but there are always contradictions in the surface of every piece,” Page said. “Lately I’m working on paintings that attempt to create the feeling of grit fused with glamour in one surface.”
Roman works with everyday materials associated with the body and home because the material is familiar to the viewer and may excite the senses and personal memories.
“My materials may include anything from discarded clothing/linens; old pillow fill, discarded objects; faux grass; faux fur; wood, glass; metal; paper or clay,” she said.
The Grad Wall is a place of honor designated for a solo show by a senior picked by a faculty member. Sheetz’ mentor and instructor, Amiko Matsuo, selected Sheetz for the honor in part because she appreciates the way Sheetz uses the anthropomorphic shapes of the bottles to reflect various aspects of her identity.
Like the tall, exaggerated forms of her bottles, Sheetz, 32, plans to “reach for the skies” when she graduates this spring with an Art degree and double emphasis in studio art and art history—and a new baby boy.
The exhibit runs Jan. 26 through Feb. 25 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday in the Napa Hall Gallery with an opening reception Jan. 29 from 6 to 8 p.m.
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