Gelareh Naseri, music student of the University of California, Riverside, explores an interactive and chilling exhibit. The second room in the exhibit hosted an art installation featuring a man sleeping in a dark room.
Professors from the College of Architecture, Visual Arts and Design submitted pieces for display at the California Baptist University Gallery in downtown Riverside for students. friends and university family to observe Sept. 3.
Two rooms housed works from the staff submitted roughly a month in advance. Numerous professors and friends of the program were in attendance to celebrate their works.
Chet Glaze, the director of the CBU Gallery, installed the pieces with the help of student workers at the gallery. Duncan Simcoe, professor of visual arts, selected and curated the work, while Glaze decided which pieces would fit and where they would go.
“This is roughly the number of pieces that were submitted because everyone was on vacation,” Glaze said pointing to approximately 20 pieces of fine arts work. “We had a relatively low number of submissions, but the ones that were omitted were omitted strictly for spacial reasons.”
Mark Batongmalaque, adjunct professor of visual arts, said he likes finding images and then breaking them down into simplified shapes.
“I like to add these geometric patterns based on the images that I find, then reassigning different colors and different values to the shapes, they make the camouflaged patterns,” he said.
Batongmalaque’s acrylic piece, “I Won’t Let You Go,” was submitted with “You Don’t Ever Leave.” The aforementioned work of art was a rendering of a statue of a woman. The second being an addition of green lines surrounding a red background.
The gallery’s back room housed an eclectic piece of performance art where a man lay sleeping in what looked like the middle of a dark room. The room contained minimal furniture including a nightstand and pair of shoes that lay dormant with a note covered in stamps.
“The piece engages personal space in a public space,” Glaze said. “The gallery is pretty well lit and it’s very open to perfect clarity. It’s kind of translating that back room and smaller space into a bedroom.”
Caron G. Rand’s piece, “Exodus,” was another painting with acrylic artwork; the colors of the artwork bled down the canvas. The piece, perched next to “Not for No One,” featured work akin to a Greek statue.
Destiny Commons, CBU alumna of the CAVAD program, visited the gallery. “Acrylic is a common medium, but you can do so much with it,’’ Commons said. The work stood as inspiration for future students.
