MORRIS GRAVES & ART OF THE NORTHWEST
Continous through the year 
Homer Balabanis Gallery

Come explore the work of Morris Graves from the Humboldt Arts Council’s Permanent Collection. Enhance your interpretation of the artworks on display by perusing the new Interactive CD-ROM The Life & Art of Morris Graves. This educational tool allows the visitor to view a selection of artwork, the Loleta Studio of the artist, and to hear interviews from his friends and colleagues.

HAC Member Exhibition
through January 17
Tom Knight & Anderson Galleries

The annual member show is a juried exhibition designed to highlight the fabulous art being produced by our artist members. As always, this exhibit is eclectic, surprising and enjoyable.

Suzanne Onodera: From the Landscape of Memory
January 14 through March 8

Suzanne Onodera’s paintings - although traditional landscapes on many levels - are more mood driven personal examinations abstracted from nature. Her inspirations are partially derived by the subtleties in weather, climate and atmosphere that evoke sensations and memories within her. Devoid of any man-made elements, they are solitary escapes, providing a transcendental experience into a floating world where society and civilization are eerily absent. Loneliness and isolation are replaced with solitude and peace. These landscape abstractions do not exist in the past, present or future nor are they literal depictions of a particular place or historical reference. It is the ambiguity in these environments that is intriguing to her and drives her body of work.

Mary K. Connelly: Topophilia (love of place)
January 14 through March 8 

Mary K. Connelly’s paintings of room interiors are a distillation of perception and memory, where color and light convey a world psychologically and spiritually charged. Architectural spaces serve as a formal and conceptual device to establish tension and duality between the interior and exterior worlds. As a figurative painter, Mary K.Connelly’s studio practice is strongly rooted in the illusionist tradition, influenced by intimate interiors of Vermeer, Bonnard, and Hopper. Mary received her BFA in painting at Washington University on St. Louis, Missouri in 1983. For the following fifteen years, she resided in Washington DC and her paintings were exhibited in many solo and selected regional group exhibitions. In 1998, Mary returned to school and earned her MFA in painting from Indiana University in Bloomington. Mary currently lives in Denver and is an Assistant Professor and Area Head of Painting and Drawing at the University of Colorado at Denver.

Susan Needham, Joyce Jonte & Suza Lambert, Hues of Emotion
January 28 through March 16

Recent figurative works of Susan Needham, Joyce Jonte, and Suza Lambert explore a variety of feeling states in differing social situations and human interactions through sculpture, watercolor on paper, an oil on canvas. Attention is given to the composition of each piece to inspire multiple possibilities of interpretation depending on the viewer’s perspective and life experiences. Static figures captured in an instant of emotional energy give the onlooker a moment of reflection into his or her own emotional states.

Sondra Schwetman: Systemic Privilege
March 18 through May 17

Systemic Privilege addresses the ambiguous space between reality and fiction where the female form and therefore the female often dwell. The works in this series concentrate on psychological, religious, cultural and social issues that women deal with everyday such as: reproduction and reproductive rights, discovery, knowledge, success, creativity, class systems, colonization, compliance, and silence. Sondra Schwetman specializes in the areas of: sculpture, installation, performance, and jewelry/metalsmithing. She is currently an Assistant Professor of sculpture at Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA.

Jim McVicker: A Way of Seeing
May 21 through July 12th 

In the summer of 2008, the Norwegian filmmaker Petter Granrud decided to make a documentary about a true artist. This film is Granrud's exploration of Jim McVicker's world, and a tribute to his work. 

We follow the painter as he works in the places he loves: The meadows, forest, harbors, the little weatherbeaten towns, and the ragged sea-cliffs of Humboldt County. Granrud strives for a deeper understanding of the bond between this remarkable artist and his astonishing native ground. 

Screenings:
Friday, May 22nd, 7 p.m., doors open at 6:30
Friday, May 29th, 7 p.m., doors open at 6:30

Seating is limited. Advance Reservations Requested. 
Please call 707-442-0278 to reserve your seat. $5 suggested donation at the door. Screenings Friday, May 22nd, 7 p.m., doors open at 6:30 Friday, May 29th, 7 p.m., doors open at 6:30

Monica Schill: Encased in Concrete 88
May 2 through January 2010

Encased in Concrete 88 will be shown in the Melvin Schuler Sculpture Garden. Monica Schill is not comfortable throwing away an item that will end up in a landfill. In many of her pieces she placed reused/recycled items inside the piece so that the viewer has no visual knowledge of its existence. Encased in Concrete 88 is made up of 88 individual pieces. Each piece is a bag of non-recyclable garbage (insulation, roofing material, wrappers, twist ties, old socks, over used dog toys, the list goes on and on) the sizes vary from 1 foot to 3 feet in diameter. Each bag is wrapped in wire, then the bags are encased in concrete. The idea is to give a representation of the space that this many bags of garbage would take-up in a land fill and to give an option for dealing with them

Robin Robin: Flora Photographica
May 28 through July 19

Acclaimed photographer Robin Robin’s exhibition Flora Photographica focuses on images of Humboldt County flora from May through July at the Morris Graves Museum of Art. The exhibition is a collection of large format studio photographs featuring an intimate look at the native plants and flowers of the North Coast.

Museum Art School
June 7 through July 24 

This exhibition features works by the Museum Art School. Works in this exhibition are based on themes and subject matter reflected in exhibitions on display at the Morris Graves Museum of Art. The Museum Art School offers visual arts after-school classes for youth age’s six to twelve.

Images of Water
July 16 through August 23

Celebrating 22 years of creative visions of water, this annual competition highlights the inspiring beauty of water. From photos of lakes and streams to paintings of ice-cube trays and snow, Images of Water is a fun, theme-based show to take part in or to just take a look at. Open to all Californians, this is an exciting opportunity for the residents of California to become involved in the arts on the North Coast.

Curtis Bartone: The Ocean Through Our Large Windows
July 23 through September 6

Curtis Bartone's paintings, drawings, and etchings focus on the uneasy relationship between human beings and the natural world, exploring the idea of wilderness and how it has changed from being a real place-mysterious, unknown, and pristine-to a distorted fiction. Curtis’ pieces fuse Italian Renaissance painting, 17th-century still life, 19th century scientific illustration with a twenty-first century aesthetic informed by photography and mass media to explore and to question our attempts to tame, control, and consume our surroundings. Painting and drawing, filtered through art history and mass media, still have the potential to make sense of seemingly disparate elements, revealing connections, beauty, and order in apparent disharmony. Bartone attended the Columbus College of Art and Design, where he received a BFA in painting in 1988 and an MFA in painting in from Northwestern University in 1991. Bartone has lived in Savannah, Georgia since 2001.

New Work by Nicole Jean Hill
July 30 through September 27

Through her anthropological approach to art making, Hill photographs familiar spaces and activities within the American cultural landscape. She is currently a faculty member in the art department of Humboldt State University in Arcata, CA.
Nicole Jean Hill received a BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Canada and a MFA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has exhibited her photographs extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. 

HAC Annual Art Auction
September 6 through September 18

Pre-bid on artwork and items to be auctioned at the annual Art Auction Gala on Saturday, September 26, 2009.

15th Annual Junque Arte Competition & Exhibition
October 1 through November 22

Designed to celebrate artistic creativity on the North Coast and heighten the awareness to renewable resources in the art making process, each artwork in this juried exhibition is made from 100% recycled materials.

HAC Member Exhibition 
November 19 through January 3, 2010

The annual member show is a juried exhibition designed to highlight the fabulous art being produced by our artist members. As always, this exhibit is eclectic, surprising and enjoyable.