by Elizabeth Monks Hack
The title of the exhibition at the Cypress Gallery this month might prepare you for what you are about to discover. “Creating Through Chaos: Manic Creative Art Show” is an immersive experience, in which the artist generously invites you to partake of her particular vision and process. “Manic Creative” is the moniker of Jasmine Gonzalez, a unique creator, assembler, disassembler, and ultimately positive artist.
The front gallery greets the viewer with a selfie station of smoke and flames, in which you stand in the metaphor of her work. “Everything is on fire, and the show must go on” states Gonzalez. The walls, windows and pedestals are bursting with two and three dimensional collage, assemblage (some under bell jars), sculpture, wall hangings, masks, and glorious “up-cycled paintings.” In these the artist transforms found works of art to create something new and startling. My favorite is “Eyeball Bouquet” in which an oil painting of a vase is filled with Gonzalez’s bouquet of eyes.
The show reflects a voracious appetite for creativity. It is also an attempt to intrepret and portray the chaotic experience of our media-saturated lives. The three-dimensional works are particularly strong, and emblematic of how Gonzalez processes life through art. “High Wire Cool Masks” is an assemblage “portrait bust” comprised of a white mask forms spattered with red and blue paint, swathed in a wild mane of white pillow stuffing, and crowned with colorful maze bead toy. Another, “Six-Eyed Coyote” is a large mask animal head of simulated bronze, with three pairs of mirrorball-studded eyes.
Jasmine Gonzalez is a pro-active member of our community. She is the founder and campaigner of Lompoc’s “First Thursdays” event, a boardmember of the Lompoc Valley Art Association, a member of the Lompoc Valley Arts Council, and an educator at the YMCA. In “Creating Through Chaos” she is Manic Creative, inviting us into her world of turbulence and joy as an artist.
In the main gallery this month we are treated to exquisite and refreshing pieces in black and white media. C. Wood’s “Morck” is a very large, impressive acrylic of a cow who stares at the viewer, as only a cow can do, and as only Wood can paint. Angelina LaPointe’s striking charcoal drawings of nudes on black and gray paper are marvelously rendered in cubist forms. In “Ram” Diane Atturio gives us a masterful ink portrayal of a magnificent ram, replete with horns that cast a shadow across his face. Jean Rutherford’s “Sunday Afternoon” is a delicate pointillist ink drawing of a nude lifting a string of pearls.
In the painting department, Yours Truly has contributed the very first painting of her “Small Town Abstractions” series, begun in 2003. “Avenue Beauty Shop” includes my elderly, now deceased neighbor who I would escort to get her hair done at the beauty parlor located on Ocean Avenue. The mural depicted on the side of the building has since been painted over.
Art’s exhuberance calls to us all. Whether chaotic or serene, it reflects the artist’s need to communicate a private part of oneself to be shared. We ask you to visit the gallery, enjoy the art, shop the gift store, take one of our classes, and perhaps invite a work of art into your home.
CAPTIONS
Jasmine Gonzalez “Eyeball Bouquet” Painting on painting
Jasmine Gonzalez “Inspired by Fear”
Jasmine Gonzalez “Six Eyed Coyote” Mixed media
C. Wood “Morck” Acrylic and paper on canvas
Angelina LaPointe “Reclining Nude on a Black Field” Charcoal on paper
Diane Atturio “Ram” Pen and ink on paper
Elizabeth Monks Hack “Avenue Beauty Shop” Oil on canvas