Everyone who knows about it is very excited to see what craziness I have agreed to this time,” gallerist Sue Natzler said with a laugh about the graffiti art exhibition opening this month at Piante Gallery. The installation was in the final stages of completion when I saw it and indeed, the place looked changed. […]
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
Megafauna Goes Big
Armored glyptodontids and giant sloths feature in Arcata’s newest work of public art — and no, that’s not a metaphor. Pleistocene megafauna have returned to G Street in life-size reproduction and the city’s newest mural, generously scaled as it is at 12 by 39 feet, can barely contain them. “Pleistocene Era Megafauna of the Pacific […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Caged Birds Sing
It is easy to be enchanted by the calligraphic grace with which Morris Graves captures the nuance of a bird’s posture. Looking at the print or drawing that results, you discover not just how the feathers are patterned but also how that creature scampers, waddles, barges or hops through the world. In “Hibernation I,” Graves […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Denatured
In Nancy Tobin’s new installation, an archipelago assembled from wobbly towers of thrift-store flotsam at once defines and obscures the space. Colored light bounces off pool floaties and Barbie parts. Viewers ricochet off art as they chart their course from one assemblage island to the next. Be forewarned: You may get glitter on your shoes. […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Gimme Shelter
Lori Goodman’s new installation centers on two large, contoured forms that protrude from the wall. These vaguely tent-like structures are spaced so that they almost touch at their shared boundary. Their rugged surfaces are fashioned from handmade, hand-dyed paper dressed over flexible armatures, the material Goodman has long favored for her constructions. Scale lends these […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Speed Round
This month Arts! Arcata plays it forward. Sights on the north side of the bay include a number of intriguing shows with opening receptions on Friday, Nov. 10, so wear walking shoes. Lineage: Living Traditions of Line, Shape and Design, opening at Humboldt State University’s Gou’dini Native American Arts Gallery (Humboldt State University campus, Behavioral, […]
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Three Native Artists Carry the Weight
What They Bring, What They Carry brings together artworks by Brian Tripp, Brittany Britton and Robert Benson — artists of Karuk, Hupa and Tsnungwe descent, respectively, who grew up in and around reservations in the Hoopa and Two Rivers regions. Tripp and Benson, who have exhibited regionally and nationally for decades, use process to articulate […]
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Paul Rickard’s Plein Air Progress
This month, watercolorist Paul Rickard is staging the last of three successive month-long shows at the Trinidad Coastal Land Trust’s Simmons Gallery. The first focused on the land trust’s properties, while the second presented views from Trinidad. This third exhibition brings together an eclectic assortment of plein-air subjects, all painted on the spot: coastal views […]
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Water Seekers and Pretty Ones
There was so so much going on my life, I had a desire to straighten everything up,” Teresa Stanley said. Until recently, Stanley had been showing abstract paintings based on botanical imagery. The works in her new exhibition at Humboldt State University’s Third Street Gallery leave those organic forms behind. This new body of work […]
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Dressed to Kill
Reviews KINGSMAN: THE GOLDEN CIRCLE. Matthew Vaughn first came to prominence, at least in my narrow little world, producing Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000). Having gone down the rabbit hole of British crime cinema at the time, and being a sucker for quick, slangy dialogue, clever editing and […]
Posted inArts + Scene
Seven Plus Plus
I went to Arcata’s Creamery District on foot before the heat wave broke to lay eyes on the new work of public installation art I’d heard about. It turned out to be easy enough to find. On L Street between Eighth and Ninth streets, you could see from far off that the chain link fence […]
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Looking at a Statue Looking at the Stars
In John Hylton’s art installations, ravens lend a hand. Wooden pythons whiplash across the night sky. Rough-hewn wooden figures get lost in contemplation of a painted cosmos. This is a humanist cosmos, one that’s accessed via the gazing eye — no tech necessary beyond the retina. Scenarios mark intersections where understandings of the natural world […]