Camarillo, Calif., Sept. 30, 2015 – Measuring the human footprint on nature, history and travel is a theme behind three different art exhibits set to run from Oct. 5-30 on the CSU Channel Islands (CI) campus.
A reception for all three exhibits will be Thursday, Oct. 8, from 6 – 8 p.m. in Napa Hall at One University Drive in Camarillo. All three exhibits will also be on display in Napa Hall.
“The Human Impact on Santa Rosa Island, An Artistic Approach,” rose from a trip to Santa Rosa Island taken by Photography Lecturer Larry Lytle’s students and Art Lecturer Christophe Bourély’s painting class.
Both groups of students were instructed to photograph what they saw as the human impact on the island, whether positive or negative.
“My students also took photos,” Bourély said, “but they printed their photos and painted directly on top of their photography.”
The collection created by the 17 students in the combined class included hunters aiming rifles at golden eagles and large artificial, abstract shapes painted onto Santa Rosa’s bucolic landscape.
The effect of time and memory on our recall of history inspired Los Angeles artist Tom Pazderka to create a body of work “Histories of Ambiguity” that will be shown in the Napa Hall Gallery alongside work from a fellow Master of Fine Arts student, Patrick Gilbert. Both are teaching and pursuing graduate work at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Gilbert takes artificially constructed pieces and places them in natural settings to create questions about how industry interacts with the organic landscape.
“He works with ordinary objects, but he changes the use of ordinary objects into something else,” Bourély said. “It’s relatively surreal. I find it rather striking because he makes you rethink these ordinary objects.”
Tom Pazderka’s work questions what effect time and memory has on history.
“Even fact-based history is very subjective,” Pazderka said. “My feeling is, if we don’t know exactly what happened last week, how do we know what happened 100 years ago?”
Pazderka was born in the Czech Republic and came to the U.S. when he was 13, more than 20 years ago.
Because he was raised in a country surrounded with ancient history, he was intrigued with the relative youth of American history, especially where he lived in the South.
Pazderka enjoys using a torch to burn images into wood, and also creates unusual sculpture with everyday or iconic objects.
Artist Zachary Richard Hill, who graduated from CI in spring 2015, also works with icons. Hill’s collection, called “Wanderlust” will be displayed on the Grad Wall in Napa Hall. Hill’s work is a study of bright colors and simple lines to capture the human imagery we associate with travel.
“Having never been an avid traveler myself, I used this series to explore travel relics of the past as well as learn about interesting landmarks around the world,” Hill said.
Among his pieces is a painting of vintage travel tags and a rendering of an iconic destination close to his Los Angeles home: Randy’s Donuts.
For additional information call 805-437-2772.
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CSU Channel Islands(CI) is the only four-year, public university in Ventura County and is known for its interdisciplinary, multicultural and international perspectives, and its emphasis on experiential and service learning. CI’s strong academic programs focus on business, sciences, liberal studies, teaching credentials, and innovative master’s degrees. Students benefit from individual attention, up-to-date technology, and classroom instruction augmented by outstanding faculty research. CI has been designated by the U.S. Department of Education as a Hispanic-Serving Institution and is committed to serving students of all backgrounds from the region and beyond. Connect with and learn more by visiting CI's Social Media.