“My artist’s statement is a mixtape,” Gina Tuzzi said. The paintings in her show Dance Hall Days at the Sanctuary this month are Valentines to the music that defined her personal teenage idyll. The works’ sleek, patterned surfaces make them look contemporary; gyrating silhouettes from the iPod commercials of the 2000s are an unavoidable reference […]
Gabrielle Gopinath
Gabrielle Gopinath is a critic who writes about art, place and culture in Northern California. She lives in Arcata. Follow her on Instagram @gabriellegopinath.
Posted inArts + Scene
The Force is Strong with This One
What exactly is a POP-up gallery? Well, think about the legendary Scottish village Brigadoon, which only appeared for one day every 100 years. Malia Penhall and Matt Jackson’s MM POPup Gallery, returning to Arts Alive! this month, operates in much the same manner, only on a more accessible annual schedule. This year the gallery, named […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Cult Following
Portland-based painter Tripper Dungan likes UFOs, aliens and other subjects of pop conspiracy. A slew of his small, irregularly shaped paintings are scattered at rakish angles around the Sanctuary’s comfortable, pew-filled exhibition space, as if someone fired a cartoon shotgun around the room. UFO Cult might be the only exhibition you see this year in […]
Posted inArts + Scene
String Theory
It is possible to look right through the surfaces of Natalie Craig’s mixed media paintings, admiring their airy architecture. They are multi-layered, like baklava or Jenga. Inside the laminate picture planes, each translucent leaf is differently inscribed. Pencil, oil, gouache and digital photo prints — each medium embodies different moments of the process. Craig said […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Mixology
Approached through fog and driving rain one recent afternoon, the unassuming Westhaven Center for the Arts rose out of the mist like a rustic scholar’s retreat. Inside, a colorful blitz of paintings galvanized the space. The tiny, somewhat out-of-the-way and absurdly charming “nonprofit gallery and grassroots community center” has been serving artists from the immediate […]
Posted inArts + Scene
The Bounty of the County
“After my bantam Bootsy survived two visits from the neighborhood hawk, I began taking shallow depth-of-field morning poultry portraits,” said Matthew Rooney. This month Rooney shows pictures of chickens, local produce and fungi at Ramone’s under the series title Myrtletown. He shot the images with a Nikon D800 camera in natural light, and every bud, […]
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Rivers, Tattoos and Time
Arts Arcata audiences are spoiled for choice this month. Up on the hill of higher learning, Humboldt State University’s Gou’dini Native American Arts Gallery features an information-intensive show that documents the fight to undam the Klamath. Meanwhile, Edson Gutiérrez shows tattoo prototypes downtown at Gallery Métier, on H Street right across from Bubbles. The Gou’dini […]
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Broken Relics
How does a sculptor adapt to a world already brimming with stuff? Both Walter Early and Benjamin Funke (full disclosure: this writer’s partner) make a point of making do with what we have: everyday, mass-produced objects possessing little or no inherent value. Their two-person show Chronic Fatigue is up at Humboldt State University’s First Street […]
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Iconoclasm Spasm
The past year was a rough one for public art in these parts. The summer months saw at least three public sculptures destroyed by vandalism. Those artworks, installed at Eureka’s C Street Market Square by Humboldt-based sculptors Robert Benson, Malia Penhall, and Benjamin Funke, were either lost or damaged beyond repair. Now “Following Current Events,” […]
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Theory of Evolution
As you pass the Fifth Street storefront that’s now home to Evolution Academy of the Arts, you might wonder where Eureka Studio Arts went. In fact, the art school and exhibition space was known as Eureka Studio Arts when it was under the direction of Micki Flatmo and Linda Mitchell. Artists Brent Eviston and his […]
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Full House
This month, the brain trust behind the 2-year-old Arcata arts collective/alternative space/social experiment known as the Sanctuary debuts its 2015 Card Show, which brings together unique sets of playing cards created by 12 mostly local visual artists. Its Friday opening is the latest renewal of a card-themed event series initiated in Eureka about 15 years […]
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My Precious!
Metalpoint drawing is unforgiving. This technique involves inscribing specially prepared paper with a stylus tipped with a soft, usually precious metal like silver, platinum or gold, so that a trace of the metal is left on the surface. The fine point allows for the incision of astonishingly delicate, precise lines. Lines cannot be easily erased. […]