Residency Projects Part II
Kala Fellowships are awarded annually to eight innovative artists working in printmaking, photography, book arts, installation, video and digital media. Fellowship artists are selected from a competitive field of applicants from the United States, South America, Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia. Recipient artists receive a financial award and up to six-months residency at Kala’s studio facility followed by an exhibition of their new work. The Kala Gallery is proud to present the second of our two-part exhibition series, Residency Projects, featuring work by our 2008-2009 Fellowship artists. The artists were selected by the Kala Directors in association with juror René de Guzman, Senior Curator at the Oakland Museum.
Residency Projects I presented new works created at Kala by Fellows Pawel Kruk, Samantha Lautman, Chris Turbuck and Lindsey White. Residency Projects II opens on August 27 with new works by Kala Fellows Nichole Maury, Yasuaki Onishi and Ali Richards.
Nichole Maury came to Kala from Kalamazoo where she teaches printmaking at Western Michigan University. Maury’s printmaking practice extends well beyond the traditional as seen in her wall-based installation titled Connected. Her labor-intensive monoprint process employs a grid structure to juxtapose precise diagrammatic hand-drawn structures with screen-printed textures. Maury’s experimental yet systematic process of abstracting and restructuring of images explores the dualities of order and chaos in her elegant works on paper.
Yasuaki Onishi has been in residence at Kala during his first trip to the United States. Onishi is an installation artist from Osaka, Japan, noted for his thoughtful use of simple, low-tech materials. Through combinations of black lights, fluorescent paint, plastic bags and fans, his sleight-of-hand works draw on natural phenomena, magic and a bit of whimsical humor. His memorable installations shift viewers’ attention from the reality of his mundane materials to the larger perception of air, gravity, space and light. For his first show in the United States, Onishi is creating a sculptural installation from black melted, dripping glue.
Ali Richards has traveled from the United Kingdom for her residency at Kala. Richards is known for her works in a photo-documentary format that comment on our social and physical interaction with the environment. During her stay at Kala, Richards began work on a new series titled Jesusita Summerland, a photographic exploration of California’s summer fires that have recently ravaged areas such as Santa Barbara. Her tragic yet stunning photographs present the aftermath of the violent and fiery destruction of formally luxurious mansions and the charred remnants of the so-called “good life.”
New Kala Gallery location:
2990 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94702
510-841-7000
Gallery Hours:
Tuesday – Friday, Noon – 5:30pm; Saturday, Noon – 4:30pm
Exhibitions are free and open to the public.
Kala gratefully acknowledges support from Alameda County Arts Commission, Alliance of Artists Communities, Berkeley Civic Arts Commission, California Arts Council, CEC ArtsLink, City of Emeryville, Crescent Porter Hale Foundation, Francis Collins & Dream Builders, City of Emeryville, Emery Ed Fund, Emery Unified School District, The Walter and Elise Haas Fund, The James Irvine Foundation, LEF Foundation, The Thomas J. Long Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, The Nichols Foundation, Open Circle Foundation, The Bernard Osher Foundation, The PSB Fund, The San Francisco Foundation, The Sato Foundation, Seth Sprague Foundation, Van Loben Sels/RembeRock Foundation, Mercy and Roger Smullen Fund, The Andy Warhol Foundation, Wareham Development, West Berkeley Foundation, The Bernard E. and Alba Witkin Charitable Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, and the Friends of Kala Art Institute
