AXIS EXCHANGE
January 10 – February 9, 2019
First Friday Artist’s Reception:
Friday, February 1st, 6-9 pm
Jamie Angello, Omar Thor Arason, Tavarus Blackmon, Angela Casagrande,
Doug Dertinger, Roma Devanbu, Kenna Doeringer, Richard Gilles,
Ray Gonzales, Benjamin Hunt, Aida Lizalde, Justin Marsh, Bill Mead,
Manuel Fernando Rios, Beth Consetta Rubel, Nick Shepard and Summer Ventis
In conjunction with:Switching Gears at Axis Gallery, 625 S. Street in Sacramento
January 4 – 27, 2019
Second Saturday Artist’s Reception: January 12th, 6-9 pm
Tamera Avery, Marsha Balian, Jules Campbell, Harry Clewans,
Deborah Benioff Friedman, Phyllis Lasché, TaVee McAllister Lee, Irene Nelson,
Ruth Santee and Gina Telcocci
Axis Gallery is an artist-run space in Sacramento housed within the Verge Center for the Arts. This cooperative has been in operation for over 35 years, building a reputation for exhibiting challenging contemporary work in all media. Its 15 members are emerging and established artists who show regionally, nationally, and internationally. Axis provides artists living in the Sacramento region with an opportunity to be a part of an alternative exhibition space. By creating an environment which functions outside the usual commercial sphere, members are free to explore, create, and develop works that are not contingent upon sales. Axis is dedicated to the highest standards of excellence in our selection and presentation of works of art.
625 S St, Sacramento | axisgallery.org | facebook.com/AxisGallery
Jamie Angello’s work is based in the tradition of appropriation. Appropriation art often calls into question the idea of originality and authorship. However, the reworking of familiar imagery can also suggest new ways to navigate history and enhance our understanding of the psychological depths of the current era. Angello was born in Colorado and raised in Northern California. He is currently located in Davis, California. Angello received his BA in Art from CSU Sacramento and his MFA in Studio Art from UC Davis in 2015. / jamieangello.com
Omar Thor Arason’s current work negotiates morality as it manifests in bodies, particularly in their relationship to each other. He investigates the ways in which personal systems of morality, encoded in humans through foundational experiences, can extend beyond the individual and act in both unifying and divisive ways. Arason’s paintings are composed of figures interacting with each other in a variety of moral situations that are both personal and universal in nature, and pertinent to current political events. In a departure from his previous work, Arason’s new paintings are pared down in terms of color and composition; his sparing use of architectural elements suggests only a basic plane in which to ground the figures. / omarthor.com
Tavarus Blackmon is a Sacramento native. He has been published in Susurrus, Calaveras Station, The Sacramento News and Review, The Suisun Valley Review and Newsletter. His thesis, The Politics of the Cartoon and Contemporary Art investigates the development of Outsider Art through the lens of Funk Art and Chicago-based Imagists. Exhibiting locally, nationally and internationally, he is recently the graduate of the MFA program and Provost Fellow at The University of California Davis. He has exhibited at Shy Rabbit Gallery, Pagosa Springs, CO; The Midway, San Francisco, CA; American Steel Studios, Oakland, CA, The Center for Digital Art, Los Angeles, CA, FE Gallery, Sacramento, CA, BrickHouse Gallery, Sacramento, CA and the Blue Banana Video Art Festival in Berlin, Germany. He has made a warm, artful, home with his partner Elizabeth and their three children. / tavarusblackmonart.com
Angela Casagrande’s work is an exploration of memory, its frailty and the symbolic preservation of it through material use. To recreate these memories, she uses a mixture of personal and appropriated images, utilizing analog and digital photographic formats, installation, sculpture, performance or video. Derived from her memories of family lore, myth, genealogical research, ancestral memory, and nighttime dreams, creating visually rich, layered images that connect the past and the present. Casagrande was born and raised in Humboldt County, California. She received her B.A. in Fine Art from Humboldt State University and her MFA from Maine College of Art. She lives and works in Sacramento, California and was a recipient of the 2015 Julia Margaret 625 S St, Sacramento | axisgallery.org | facebook.com/AxisGallery | [email protected] Cameron Award. Her group exhibitions include The Women’s Show at South x Southeast Photogallery in Molena, Georgia and Of Memory, Bone and Myth at the Colonel Eugene Myers Gallery of Art, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota. / angelacasagrande.com
Doug Dertinger was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. A landscapist, his work focuses on the intimate encounter of the unattended. The work in Purgatory is an exploration of the liminal spaces that develop alongside freeways in urban areas. Like Dante’s Comedie, Purgatory traverses the space between deprivation and redemption, of neglect and attention. Doug has shown nationally and internationally, and is in the permanent collections of the Princeton University Art Museum and St. Mary’s University Art Gallery, Nova Scotia. He holds a BFA in Fine Arts from Colorado State University and an MFA in Fine and Media Arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and has taught at a variety of institutions across the U.S., joining the faculty of Photography at California State University in 2008. / dougdertinger.com
For over 40 years Roma Devanbu has been making pilgrimages to sights of religious and/or art historic importance around the globe, and making artwork in response. In much of her work repeated gestures create intricate patterns that reflect her fascination with the phenomenal compulsion of humans to make and decorate, as well as referencing the specific tatting and china painting traditions of her grandmothers. Roma Devanbu has a BFA from Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh PA. She spent a year studying Asian Art History at the University of Baroda, Gujarat, India. Then returned to the States to earn an MFA from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Devanbu has lived in Davis, CA for more than 20 years. She is a studio resident at Verge Center for the Arts in Sacramento and has been a member of Axis Gallery since 2014.
A few years ago, Kenna Doeringer was inspired to combine two passions, creating art and reading. She writes: “The printed word today is becoming a dinosaur with the advent of e-books and the closing of book stores all over the country. In my search for which books to use and what kind of art to make out of them, I began a journey that led me and my art in ways I had never imagined. I set up a list of rules for myself and away I went. I had an obvious list of my favorites, but as I perused the used book stores, I would find others jumping off the shelves and reminding me what kind of impact they had. The ideas for what kind of art I am going to create sometimes fall into my lap, while others are inspired by rereading the book or even the book I find and its condition. The work produced is not an interpretation of the story, but a reflection on the influence it has had on me. Every piece I start and finish is heartbreaking and exciting, a book is destroyed, but art is created.” / kenna-art.com
Richard Gilles received his BA in Fine Arts from San Francisco State University in 1981. While pursuing the practice of art, Gilles has also worked as a papermaker, bookbinder, and printer. He currently lives and works in Folsom California. Gilles has exhibited nationally and his work is included in the permanent collections of the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, the Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach, Florida and the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, Davis, California. The work included here in from his recent project, in·fra-structure. The birth of a modern American housing subdivision begins by reshaping the natural contours of the land. Next comes the infrastructure. This photographic series starts when the ground is peeled back to make way for the hidden underlying structural networks that supports our modern life above. Using a flash and photographing at dusk and dawn I breathe life into these usually hidden components of our existence above. / hues.com
Benjamin Hunt is a visual artist and fabricator. Born and raised in San Diego, California, he received both a Bachelors of Fine Art and a Masters of Fine Art in Spatial Art from San José State University in 2000 and 2008 respectively. Hunt has exhibited both regionally and nationally. Most recently, he was awarded the Leff-Davis Fund for Visual Artists by the Sacramento Region Community. Ben works as a part of the Art Department at Sac State, and is an active member at Axis gallery. He lives and maintains a studio practice in Sacramento. Hunt has had a longtime interest in collectible, utilitarian and sometimes mundane objects. The interest in objects such as photographs, furniture or old toys is fueled by how such objects become a marker of time to the collector or observer. Hunt’s recent work has been focused on creating objects that imbue a sense of captured time and nostalgia through their design, aesthetics, and contents. / benhuntartwork.com
Aida Lizalde (b. 1990, Mexico) is a multimedia artist and activist based in the Delta region of California and living in Sacramento. She has curated visual arts content for Placeholder Magazine and Axis Gallery and has been a recipient of the Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, Young Space Grant, the Hopkins Endowment for Studio Art Students, the Crocker Kingsley Art Award, and the Herb Alpert Scholarship for Emerging Young Artists among others. Her work consists in research issues of citizenship, power, heritage, nationality and other personal and political experiences and it has been recently exhibited at the Museum of Northern California of Chico, the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Beacon Project Sacramento, SOMArts South of Market Cultural Center, The Latino Center of Art and Culture of Sacramento, and Axis Gallery. / aidalizalde.com
Justin Marsh is a California native working between multiple art mediums with a specific interest in comprehending failure. His works explore personal/human tragedy, collapsed structures and structural collapse. He is a member of Axis Gallery, Sacramento and a museum professional serving as the Exhibition and Program Preparator at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis. / jgmarsh.com
Bill Mead is originally from Boston, Massachusetts, and received his BFA in painting and sculpture from Parsons School of Art and Design in New York City. Since 2005 he has focused most his efforts on design, web development and teaching. He currently lives in Davis, CA with his wife, dog, cat and chickens. The work on display previews his upcoming show at Axis Gallery in June 2019, tentatively called QUERTY, that deals with issues surrounding “work” and “labor” in a digital environment. / wmmead.com
Manuel Fernando Rios’s work explores the idea of borders, real and unreal. The imagery often includes figurative subjects juxtaposed next to colorful geometric shapes which careen in and out throughout the picture plain creating a sense of discombobulation and confusion. The interaction between the figures results in confusing or conflicting narratives. Manuel Fernando Rios is a West Sacramento, CA based artist and instructor, Axis Gallery member and sits on the board of directors for Verge Center for the Arts in Sacramento, CA. Rios earned his BA and MA in Studio Art from California State University, Sacramento. He received his MFA from the University of California, Davis. Rios has shown in such venues as the Museum of the African Diaspora (M.o.A.D.), San Francisco, CA, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA and the Museum of Culture and the Environment, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, WA. / manuelfernandorios.com
Nick Shepard grew up in New York City, graduated with a degree in Studio Art and Art History from Carleton College, and earned his MFA from the School of Visual Arts in his hometown. His work has been featured in the 2016 Oregon Biennial: The Studio Visits at Disjecta in Portland, OR, Photography Now at the Center for Photography at Woodstock. He has also appeared in Blue Sky’s Northwest Drawers, at the Wassaic Project, the Center for Fine Art Photography, in the 2011 Wallpaper* Magazine Graduate Directory, and in Fraction, Lintroller, and Ain’t Bad Magazines. Nick is based in Sacramento where he is an Assistant Professor of Photography at Sacramento State. His recent color still life photographs depict materials that make up scenes around us but are typically hidden from view: gypsum board, 2x4s, painter’s tape, packaging materials. Shepard depict these subjects in playful and refined geometric compositions that challenge our perception of space. Like the spaces we inhabit, the underlying elements of the pictures are hidden from view. (At least for the most part.) / nickshepard.com
Beth Consetta Rubel is a multidisciplinary fine artist who combines hand drawn and painted details, multi-media, found objects, occasional movement and film elements. Rubel’s work has been featured in Politico Magazine, Facebook AIR, and Complex’s feature “These Young Artists Will Soon Be Household Names,” awarded “Honorable Mention” for the annual juried exhibition at Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, and produced solo exhibits for George Washington Carver Museum, University of Texas in Austin, and ArtShare in Los Angeles. Rubel holds an BFA from the University of Texas. She currently lives and works in Sacramento, California. / www.BethConsettaRubel.com
Summer Ventis’ work uses the printed surface to address internal and external landscapes and their intersections; the imprints we leave on each other and our surroundings and the imprints that our surroundings leave on us. She received a BA in Art from Grinnell College and an MFA in Printmaking from the University of Colorado Boulder. Her work has appeared in national and international group exhibitions, including “The Contemporary Print 2017” at Flatbed Press in Austin, TX, and “Global Print 2017” in Douro, Portugal; and is held by collections including those of the Denver Art Museum and Proyecto ’ace in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Recent solo exhibitions include “Emigrant Lake[s]” at the Oregon Governor’s Office and “I looked up at the sky and saw what I had put into the ground” at the University of Iowa. She is Assistant Professor of Printmaking at California State University Sacramento. / summerventis.com