Current Exhibitions

NOW ON EXHIBIT:

Curtis Otto Retrospective

Anderson Gallery, December 19 through February 12, 2012

Curtis Otto says he started to paint because “the oil is what turned me on -- it was the 'juice.' The brush just moved by itself -- it turned me on to painting and art.”

Otto has had several one person shows, his work is represented in various private collections. Otto spends most of his time in Eureka and Grants Pass, Oregon.

Exhibition Sponsored by Eric Furman & Aline Faben

Demitri Mitsanas: Mythographic Dialogues

January 19 through March 4

Over the years Mitsanas has moved through several styles, fashions and media in painting. However, his subjects have always been anthropomorphic or have related to some aspect of the human character or the natural environment. Color and light have always been important elements in his art. Mitsanas says, “In my opinion, color is the heartbeat of painting.” Mitsanas has recently been immersed in a cycle of painting subjects from Greek myths such as “The Myth of Ariadne, Persephone, Ikaros, and Danae of Argos.” Mitsanas finds it intriguing and entertaining the tragicomic characters of the Greek myths and how they appear to us in contemporary society: illogical, irrational and paradoxical. Mitsanas, was born in Tripoli, Greece, he is an emeritus professor of art at Humboldt State University and has exhibited extensively locally, nationally and internationally.

Exhibition Sponsored by Philip & Sally Arnot

A Tom Knight Legacy

Tom Knight Gallery, December 21 through February 5, 2012

On view in the gallery named after him, the Humboldt Arts Council is pleased to present an exhibition of 18 photographers inspired by Professor Tom Knight's teaching who went on to distinguish themselves in the field of photography.

Even as a child Tom Knight was a photographer. At 11 years old he was printing photographs at his family’s Berkeley home in a backyard shed that his parents converted into a darkroom. At age 14, he entered a photography contest co-sponsored by the Oakland Tribune. The assignment was to photograph the Bay Bridge. Knight won. He entered the following year and won again. The Tribune was intrigued and soon his images were being published in the newspaper.

Those early projects kicked off his career as a photographer. Always a people person, Knight was best known for his portraits, as well as some landscapes and still life scenes. His photographs of everyday people in Mexico and portraits of fellow professors display an intimacy and level of comfort that allows the images to feel very natural. A book of Knight’s work was published by his wife, Katy Knight in 2009 and is available for purchase at the Humboldt Artist Gallery at the MGMA.

After a period of time in the U.S. Air Corps in World War II, he enrolled at Humboldt State, and earned a master’s degree in education. After three years teaching at Arcata High School, he was hired by the Humboldt State Art Department to teach jewelry, design, painting and photography. Knight taught at Humboldt State University until his passing in 1990. During his over 30 years of teaching he touched literally hundreds of student’s lives. He was also credited with inviting some of the best photographers in the world to speak at HSU, including photographers Imogen Cunningham and Ansel Adams.

To honor his memory, the Morris Graves Museum of Art in Eureka, Calif., dedicated the Tom Knight Gallery on Jan. 1, 2000 and this exhibition is a wonderful tribute to his impact on photography here on the North Coast as well as across the country as illustrated by the many well-known photographers represented in this exhibition. The Exhibition is Sponsored by Tom & Gale Becker

Morris Graves

Atrium Gallery, Ongoing

Explore the work of Morris Graves from the Humboldt Arts Council Permanent Collection. Enhance your interpretation of the work on display by perusing the interactive CD-ROM "The Life & Art of Morris Graves". This educational tool allows the visitor to view a selection of artwork, the Loleta studio fo the artist and to hear interviews from his friends and colleagues.

Hiroshige's Stations of the Tokaido Road

Youth Gallery, January 7-February 26

This exhibition features 22 prints from the fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road by Hiroshige. The prints commemorate Hisoshige's trip from Edo (Tokyo) to Kyoto in 1832. The artist traveled with the Shogun's retinue to deliver horses to the Emperor. Hiroshige became famous as a great landscape artist when the Tokaido Road prints were finished in 1834.

Frances Kuta, Where the Light Falls

Floyd Bettiga Gallery, January 7-February 26, 2012

The exhibition “Where The Light Falls” is a display of Kuta’s paintings united by the single thread of the artists’ untiring effort to capture and portray the light effect upon subjects. “Light is the first thing I look for in any scene…where it enters, how it sparkles or gives translucency, how it spills and scatters over anything in its way and how it quietly exits. It illuminates color and the lack of takes color away...it moves over planes of the face…jumping from one to the other, skipping some in-between, creating recognition without detail.” It is all about the light.