Due to financial losses associated with the upkeep, Great Northern Coffee will no longer be in business as of December 31, 2019. Chico Art Center Board of Directors have loved sharing this adventure with the community. A volunteer transitioning committee will be developing new, income-based options for utilizing the train car. For questions or comments please inquire to Lisa Freeman-Wood lmfreemanwood@yahoo.com.
August 15 - September 25, 2020
Reception: Saturday, August 15, 5-7 pm
This is an invitational show featuring some of the great masters of the genre.
The California Visionary Art Movement was born in San Francisco in the late 60’s and early 70’s inspired by the psychedelic era, spiritual awakening, transformative synergy, and a search for deeper inner meanings of life.
Utopia, shamanic mysticism, the moon landing, new age ideals, East meet West philosophies, and fantastic realism were concepts for artists to discover and draw upon. Sacred geometry, world building, the beauty of nature and the human body, were important themes.
Music advanced technology with the arrival of synthesizers played an important role in this movement as both inspiration, and by creating meditative spaces to work by. Visionary art became album covers.
With visionary art, the artists became shamans, magicians, and alchemists transmuting inner visions into sacred art, or at least they attempted to make inner truths and the transcendental into manifest forms such as paintings and drawings.
Some of the artists associated with this movement painted scenes of earthly beauty, a return to Eden, sanctuaries for the soul, imagined cosmic landscapes before the age of planetary discovery. Others artists painted surreal and hallucinatory compositions, and sometimes satirical commentaries on modern life.
Reception: Friday, July 10, 5-7 pm
Focusing on local, threatened, and native plants. Biodiversity is important to the health of the region we live in. Replanting after wildfires whether around homes, towns, parks or forests is needed. Increasing awareness and knowledge of plants, plant life cycles and how to use them effectively in our lives.
$25 Members/$35 Non-Members
Apply by June 5. Online application coming soon...
Reception: Friday, June 5, 5-7 pm
This annual community exhibit of 12x12” artworks is a celebration of tiny experiments in color, shape and materials by artists of all ages. Grab a small work while it’s hot!
$20 Entry includes an optional 12”x12” canvas
Drop Off: May 30-31, 2020
This is a jury-free exhibit of 12”x12” artworks. All skill levels are welcome to participate! Entry fee includes a 12”x12” (optional) canvas. You may use any medium you want. Collage, assemblage, textile, wire sculpture, paper clay, origami, found objects, you name it! Let your imagination run wild! Use it as a platform for a sculpture, hang it from the ceiling, make it a box, use the reverse side, stretch your favorite fabric over it, weave it, upholster it, knit over it, felt it, use encaustic wax, feather it, flock it, fleece it or frottage it! Questions? Contact gallery director at ckelly@chicoartcenter.com
CALL FOR ART
Call for Art Submissions: “Windows Into The World”
Chico Art Center (CAC) wants to see what you are experiencing during this time of the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing. Using your visual vocabulary as a creative outlet, give your “view” of the colors, textures, shadows, silhouettes, reflections, objects, scenes, etc. that convey your current physical and/or emotional state. Your image can be a literal view from your window, an interpretive response of your emotional life, or a view you would like to see.
Write a brief, 5-10 sentence reflection of what you are going through. How are you handling this isolation? If you are portraying an imagined scene, reflect on what it is you wish you were experiencing.
Some of the most inspiring artwork has come from the darkest of times. Pablo Picasso painted Guernica at his home in Paris in response to the bombing of Guernica, a Basque Country town in northern Spain, by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. A tour of the painting raised funds for Spanish war relief. Freda Kahlo transformed her body casts into mystical paintings during her many bed bound, post-op recovery periods. When Henri Matisse could no longer stand, he drew from his bed using an improvised staff. Ruth Asawa found her calling as an artist at age 16, in an internment camp. Early American Whalers passed their idle time by carving images into leftover whale teeth and bones. More recently, over the past two weeks, Kremena Todorova and Kurt Gohde of Kentucky, have been photographing community members on their porches as a community portrait project. How are you using your time? We want to see. Use your visual voice.
This is a free, non-juried, online exhibition of digital images. The original works can be made with any medium. Everyone is welcome to participate by submitting an image or video with writing. As CAC is currently closed, we are taking this opportunity to present art’s power to bring people together through collective cognitive empathy in the digital age, as we are all experiencing this world changing event together. This digital exhibition will be presented and archived on CAC’s website.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
Submit your digital image or video by uploading to the online submission form. High resolution with a minimum size of 10x10 inches is preferred but not required. Enter your contact information and paste in your brief, 5-10 sentence reflective statement. For questions contact the Gallery Director at ckelly@chicoartcenter.com
IMPORTANT DATES
Upload by April Sunday, April 26, 2020.
View online exhibition as a slideshow on chicoartcenter.com beginning Saturday, May 9th, 2020.
*Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the gallery was closed March 18th. Please take a virtual tour below and enjoy the exhibit online.
March 7 - May 29, 2020
If you love whimsical art and animals, this exhibit featuring zany portraits and 3D pop-out paintings by Ana Nelson & Phil Dynan is for you. Chico Art Center recognizes longtime members and dedicated animal rescuers, rehabilitating over 400 animals in our region.
Reception: Saturday, March 7, 2-4 pm
Bring the kiddos to the daytime reception for sweet treats and pose with a cut out of a furry friend!
This exhibit is very unusual because it includes their new 3D, Reverse Perspective, painted sculptures they call “viewer interactive art”.
The concept behind the sculpture is the brainchild of London artist Patrick Hughes, well-known, world- wide for his amazing sculptures. Dynan and Nelson have been working with Hughes for the past three years and this will be the first time showing the sculptures in an exhibition. “The art has motion and also morphs as the viewer changes positions,” explains Dynan, “and the more the viewer gets into the art, the more they appear to be dancing. They want to figure out how it is done. They will twist sideways, jump up and down, walk back and forth and try to approach the art (which is a little disorienting).”
“But it is impossible to understand the concept completely. It is a combination of geometry, math, science and a little bit of magic. “ Dynan adds.
There are several videos on Youtube showing the work that Dynan and Nelson have done, but the artists both quickly point out that a video only gives a viewer a “feeling” for what the sculptures are like. Seeing them in person is the only way to get the full effect.
All of the art in the exhibit is related to the Rescue Center that the two artists have had for the past ten years. Portraits include goats, dogs, cats, cows, a donkey, a llama, chickens and other animals.
“People started dropping off animals at our art studio (rural) about eleven years ago”, Anastasia says, “at first it was just a few kittens, then goats, llamas, dogs, and, well, it just turned into a zoo.”
To support the animals (food and vet bills) the two artists started painting pictures of the animals. It proved to be very successful and popular and they expanded into selling notecards as well. There is a section within the exhibit where people can pick out a card or print with their favorite animal. Proceeds from the exhibit will go to the artists' Accidental Animal Rescue Center.
For more information about the artists, visit http://www.blueoaksarts.com/
