Wednesday, November 3, 2010


Spatium Sets
Curated by Bessie Kunath


Daniela Campins, 2010

Event Title: “Spatium Sets” curated by Bessie Kunath
Exhibition Feature: UC Santa Barbara 2nd Year Masters in Fine Arts candidate Daniela Campins solo art exhibition and a group art exhibition featuring Dashiell Manley, Daniel Tierney, Rachel Malin, Julia Goodman, Renee Gertler, Rema Ghuloum, Todd Bura, Lisa Rybovich Cralle, Norman Ballou, Lakeshia King, Albert Meyer
Opening Reception Date/Time: Saturday, November 13th, 2010 from 6-9 pm
Exhibition Dates: Saturday November 13th thru Saturday November 20th, 2010
Exhibition Location: 479 Gallery at UC Santa Barbara main campus
Gallery Hours: 12-4 Monday-Friday and weekends by appointment
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In conjunction with UCSB’s Interdisciplinary Humanties Center’s event series entitled, “Geographies of Place”, "Spatium Sets" is a group art exhibition of contemporary art practitioners in collaboration with a solo exhibition of UCSB MFA candidate, Daniela Campins. 11 selected artists have independently devoted recent projects to exploring their relationships with space traversing between an architecturally-aware painting practice and conversely, a painterly approach to 3D work. The conceptual content directly influences the materiality and form in this grouping of contemporary paintings and sculptures. The dynamic of the group exhibition reveals a communal consciousness amongst the artists which transcends their relative geographical distances from one another. 
Representing Southern California are the artists Dashiell Manley, Todd Bura and Rachel Malin. Artists from Northern California include Lisa Robovich Cralle, Dan Tierney, Renee Gertler, Julia Goodman, Albert Meyer, Norman Balou, Lakeisha King and Rema Gholum.
Venezuelan-born, Daniela Campins' artwork articulates the exploration of space and visual perception though an abstract painting process. Using Campins' paintings as a point of departure, various California-based artists were invited to exhibit their work dealing with similar issues. Each artist’s approach is unique in format but interrelates with the collective’s works or “sets” in the exhibition. In this sense, the artists employ a self-referential style where a language or vocabulary is established for the viewer that acts as an entry point into the work. This “language” is developed through mimicked lines, shapes, colors, textures and materials. The exploratory nature of the painting or construction process in each work reveals that the artist was simultaneously developing their language and attempting to use it to communicate their process.
While the language might be considered a formal quality of the work, it also becomes the content of their work. The structure of material and space is a major theme that is perhaps initiated by each artists’ medium, and soon becomes the conceptual structure as well. With the intellectual pressure to create gestalt interdependent variables within their art, a certain playfulness of each artist’s approach is evident in the humble and entropic nature of materials and at times, the craftsmanship-not to be confused with recklessness. With titles such as Renee Gertler’s “Blue Concentric Globe” or Daniel Tierney’s “Dojo”, thought-provoking gestures interlude the exhibition to suggest larger, more universal ideas from where the artwork tangents.
This exhibition is kindly co-sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center and the Department of Art at UC Santa Barbara. "Spatium Sets" runs from Saturday November 13th to Saturday November 20th, 2010. The opening reception will be on Saturday Nov. 13 from 6-9 pm. Regular gallery hours are M-F from 12-4pm and weekends by appointment; contact Bessie Kunath.
Gallery 479 is the Art Department's student-run exhibition space in Building 479 that features current creative endeavors by students and faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The gallery is available for one-week exhibitions throughout the Spring, Fall, and Winter quarters.

*For high-res images, artist contacts or more information, contact Bessie Kunath:
(415) 378-5428/ info@bessiekunath.com

Campus map of gallery location:

Campus map for parking:

Information about the IHC’s “Geographies of Place” series: