Devise and Evolve

Devise and Evolve: Janet Bothne, Alice Clements, Mary Addison Hackett, Julie Schustack On View: May 22 - June 25, 2010 Reception: Saturday, May 22, 6-9 p.m. Postcard Photos from the Opening Reception Glendale News Press Review Return to Brand Library Art Galleries Schedule page

Devise and Evolve showcases the work of four Los Angeles area artists working in a variety of media, including sculptural installation, mixed media sculpture, painting and drawing. Each of these artists cites process as being critical to her art making. Whether they are seeking to understand and elucidate the artistic process or to simply experience and enjoy it, the resulting works of art are variously complex, entertaining and beautiful and together make for an eclectic exhibition that is certain to engage gallery visitors.

Janet Bothne (Santa Monica) studied studio arts at the University of Massachusetts, the Fuller Museum School in Brockton, Massachusetts, UCLA, and the Brentwood Art Center. Bothne celebrates the power of color in her richly atmospheric acrylic on canvas diptychs. Inspired by music, her work also explores the relationship between the auditory and visual senses. The artist explains that it is “no coincidence that both [colors and musical sounds] are described in terms such as soft, loud or bright – they have keys and tones. I experience muted colors as chords and saturated colors as crescendo.” For Bothne the process of painting while listening to music leads to unexpected and exhilarating results—harmonious or discordant combinations of color and texture that evoke a range of emotional responses from both the artist and the viewer. Bothne’s focus is on the process of creation and she does not expect or seek perfection in her work. She hopes that her paintings help the viewer “realize that there is also beauty, life and electricity found in the imperfect [and] unexpected.” Bothne exhibits regularly in the Los Angeles area, most recently at Jeanie Madsen Gallery in Santa Monica, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, TAG Gallery and the Burbank Creative Arts Center. In 2009 she had a solo exhibition at Gallery 14 in Sacramento, California. More information about Bothne’s work can be found on her website.	Janet Bothne Blues Riff acrylic on canvas 42" x 102"
Alice Clements (Los Angeles) is a graduate of Wesleyan University and holds an MFA from Art Center College of Design with a focus in sculpture. Clements’ sculptural installation work wrestles with questions that are at the core of art making: “when is a work finished?” and “what makes it good?” These are questions of process, which is a primary focus of her work. Using materials like drywall, Styrofoam, wood planks, plaster and sheetrock, Clements creates site-specific installations that interact with natural light, keeping the work itself and the way it is perceived in constant flux. The temporal aspect of Clements art making is further emphasized by her deliberate use of paint. Through paint she encourages the viewer to think about the order in which the piece was assembled and the labor that went into its creation. Clements has worked extensively as a museum and gallery preparator and perhaps it is this experience that has inspired her to create works of art out of materials that are more often used behind the scenes to support the exhibition of art. These functional materials, usually subservient to the art objects that sit or hang upon them suddenly become works of art themselves, playfully asking another fundamental question: who gets to call it art? Clements recently curated the Mostly Sculpture Show at Sea and Space Explorations in Highland Park and participated in the four-person exhibition Shells, Prisms at the Glendale College Gallery. She has also exhibited recently at Post Gallery and Art Center College of Design. More information about Clement’s work can be found on her blog.	Alice Clements the psyche rejoices while the ego weeps (detail) plaster, sheetrock, enamel
Mary Addison Hackett (Culver City) holds an MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a BFA in painting from the University of Tennessee. For the last decade she has lived and worked in Los Angeles. Hackett explains that she uses “process as a starting point” and is “interested in abstraction as a narrative device.” Using personal iconography and a range of painterly techniques and visual tropes—drips, expressionistic gestures, hard edges, biomorphic forms—Hackett creates colorful and electric paintings that serve as wordless diaries, collecting and combining the events, memories and moments that make up each day. For Hackett, “the emphasis is on the act of painting; the representations that remain are traces of the production.” We are thrilled that the artist will be doing several live painting performances on the night of the opening reception, demonstrating her process-based methods by making works directly on the gallery walls. The exhibition will also include Hackett’s drawings and mixed media works. Hackett had a recent solo show at Kristi Engle Gallery in Los Angeles and at TAG Art Gallery in Nashville. Other recent exhibitions include Incognito at the Santa Monica Art Museum and shows at Eagle Rock Center for the Arts, the Amelia Museum of Archeology, Amelia, Italy, the Rio Hondo College Art Gallery, and the Irvine Fine Arts Center. More information about Hackett’s work can be found on her website.	Mary Addison Hackett Dire Straits acrylic, oil on canvas 60" x 96"
Julie Schustack (Gardena) holds a BFA from California State University Long Beach and an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Schustack’s mixed media sculptures made from found objects and ceramic forms are technical and visual curiosities. Complex constructions of record players, music box innards, cords and wires, vice grips and motor parts combined with delicate ceramic cones are immediately engaging as the viewer can’t help but wonder whether the invention functions, and what the artist was thinking when she assembled it. At the core of Schustack’s work is the seductive process of problem solving, as she asks “how can I make this spin or amplify the sound it makes?” Curiosity and experimentation thus underlie her method of art making, leading to “work that incorporates function, yet the pieces struggle to function at their best.” The struggle of these reconstructed remnants to be of use is perhaps a metaphor for the way we as humans strive to perform to the best of our unique (dis)abilities, or as Schustack says, “when limitations are present, abilities are born.” Schustack’s solo exhibition UnMusical was recently on view at the Ventura College Art Gallery and she has been in numerous group exhibition in the Los Angeles area including Phantom Galleries, the University Art Museum, California State University Long Beach, Greenleaf Gallery in Whittier and the Ink and Clay exhibition at Kellogg Art Gallery, California State University Polytechnic University, Pomona. More about Schustack’s work can be found on her website.	Julie Schustack Spilling Cones ceramics, mixed media

Visitor Info | Brand Library Events | Recital Hall | Art Galleries | Contact Us