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VIrtual Walkthrough

Embrace

Matjames Metson, Kim Tucker and Michael Giancristiano

Opening Reception February 2nd 6-10pm

Saturday March 2nd at 7pm
OCCCA "Art Lecture" Series Presents:
Join EMBRACE Exhibition Curator Katherine Huntoon and exhibiting artists Kim Tucker, Michael Giancristiano and Matjames Metson for a gallery talk. Free and open to the public. Reception to follow event.

 

In the work of each of these three artists can be found a transformation of the normal and everyday and a loving view of the otherwise discarded, disregarded and rejected. Imperfect and undesirable creatures, abandoned or forgotten everyday objects and the intense interrogation of an otherwise unremarkable material divulges each artists’ tender enfolding and sharing of their vision.

"Embrace shows us how to remember that we all are the imperfect, the hope-filled the commonplace and the haunted."

In the dense assemblage pieces by Matjames Metson, it is easy to imagine him collecting and gathering in his arms things from previous lives - vintage photographs, pencils, tools, boxes, gears, pencils - and lovingly carrying these articles to his studio. There he rescues them, forms alliances between the refugee story.

Kim Tucker’s tribe of built clay creatures remind us of aspects of our corporeality we would rather not admit.  Her creepily expressive and familiar monsters reflect her fondness for their afflictions and desires.  We can’t help but share her acceptance of them just as they are.

Michael Giancristiano scrapes, sands, patches, rubs, paints stains and grows more and more intimate with each revelation of process.  He entices the individual story and personality from each piece of plywood until his labor of love discloses a view we never expected.

Artist Bios:

Matjames Metson
Matjames is known for his illustrative work as well as his assemblage sculptures. A self-taught artist, Matjames spent the better part of two decades living in New Orleans.  He now calls Los Angeles home. His work has been featured at the Craft and Folk Art Museum, Billy Shire Fine Arts and La Luz de Jesus all in Los Angeles, CA, Barrister’s Gallery in New Orleans, LA and the American Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore, MD. He is currently putting the finishing touches on his graphic novel, Survivor’s Guild, Book 2, a story of the displacement and loneliness he experienced as a Katrina refugee.

Kim Tucker
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Kim Tucker studied ceramic sculpture working with Viola Frey and Arthur Gonzalez at the California College of Arts and Crafts, graduating with a B.F.A. in 1996. Kim earned her M.F.A under M.J. Bole from The Ohio State University in 1999. Kim is currently teaching ceramics at Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles. Her work has earned several awards and has been included in several group and solo exhibitions including American Museum of Ceramic Art Pomona, CA, L2kontemporary, Honor Fraser Gallery, Gallery 825 and at a bowling alley all in Los Angeles, CA, Nexus Gallery in Berkeley, CA and Gallery Futur in Switzerland following an artists residency there. Tucker was named as one of “Seventeen Artists You Should Know About“ in the 2009 issue of Los Angeles’ THE magazine.

Michael Giancristiano
Michael Giancristiano was born in Los Angeles, California. He is accomplished in several media but is best known for his abstract, plywood wall reliefs. His work has exhibited internationally and can be found in many private and corporate collections including the library archives of The Museum of Modern Art, New York.  His work has been exhibited most recently at LAXART, LA Artcore and Shoshana Wayne Gallery and in Art Platform LA at the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825 all in Los Angeles, CA, and at LACMA and the Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, CA.

Curated By Katherine Huntoon

Katherine Huntoon has spent nearly thirty years as a curator and gallery director in the Southeast. She earned her BFA in Studio Art concentrating in assemblage and installation work at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA and her MA in Southern Studies with a concentration in contemporary self-taught art at University of Mississippi Center for the Study of Southern Culture, Oxford, MS.

Over twelve years she served as Gallery Director and Curator at Old Dominion University building an off-campus gallery and part-time position into a $1.2M museum building with a collection of over 300 pieces of contemporary folk art. She was founding director and curator of Delta Axis Contemporary Arts Center in Memphis, TN, a not-for-profit, artist-run community visual arts center for 3 years.

Following Hurricane Katrina she spent one year as curator of the historic Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs, MS on the Gulf Coast recreating collection records and overseeing the conservation of multiple pieces.  She left a position as Director of Exhibition Programming at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, VA to come to California and engage in a freelance curatorial career.

Embrace at OCCCA
OC Art Blog by Suzanne Walsh, February 28, 2013

Matjames Metson, “Embrace” Group Show at OCCCA, Santa Ana, Catwheel