Artist Spotlight: Toni Reinis - Looking But Not Seeing

Toni Reinis, Trish, Clay w/patina, 19 x 11.5 x 11.5"

In her inaugural exhibition at TAG, Looking But Not Seeing, Toni Reinis tackles social issues that we observe but often overlook. The artist believes that one can look, but it takes wisdom, knowledge, and empathy to actually see and interpret the human form and facial expressions.Looking But Not Seeing focuses on matters such as depression, discrimination and military sexual trauma (MST). 

Toni Reinis, Solitary Confinement, Clay w/patina, 14.5 x 9 x 12"

Solitary Confinement, a rusted clay sculpture, depicts a man who is suffering months or years of isolation. Employing form and rough clay surfaces, Reinis challenges the viewer to empathize with this man, and question why society may have become complacent in his torture. The California constitution condemns the use of torture, yet prisons routinely utilize confinement as a justified form of punishment. Inmates have no shoes, no clothing, no writing instruments, nothing. As a result, suicide is not uncommon in these situations of excessive deprivation.

Toni Reinis, Manzanar, Clay w/patina, 16.5 x 11 x 8"

Toni Reinis’ sculpture begins with live models and clay. Finished pieces are fired and often cast into materials such as bronze, resin or liquid stone. The sculptures are refined with paint, organic objects and industrial finishes. Reinis utilizes her knowledge of the human form to enact intricate storytelling with each piece.

Toni Reinis, pledge of allegiance, Painted clay w/ fabric and metal, 63 x 12 x 12"

Through this body of sculptural work, Reinis aims to convey the stories of those she has met. Looking But Not Seeing promotes viewers to not just look at the work, but to be drawn in and understand the emotions and traumas of others.

Tuesday, April 17 - Saturday, May 12
Artist Talk: Saturday, April 28, 3 p.m.

Artist Spotlight: Jenny Revitz Soper - Twisted Visions

Jenny Revitz Soper, Attempt at Subversion, Digitally Twisted Photograph, 16 x 24"

Jenny Revitz Soper’s Twisted Visions exhibition at TAG is a nostalgic revisit for some, but for many, a new trip.

Jenny Revitz Soper, The First Ammendment is Alive and Well at McDonalds, Digitally Twisted Photograph, 40 x 30"

Her photography presents a mind-blowing, wildly colored dimension slightly off to one side. She transforms the ordinary to the extraordinary with clever juxtaposition, contradiction, color and whimsy. It is spontaneous, yet not unconsidered.

Jenny Revitz Soper, Subway Man, Digitally Twisted Photograph, 22.5 x 30"

Soper’s visual narrative takes us back to a time when “psychedelic” was a household word and colors glowed with black light or without. Her vision is a place of fun, humor and neon colors. Frameless, nothing stops the art from spreading to the edges and beyond. 

Jenny Revitz Soper, The Aperture, Digitally Twisted Photograph, 22.5 x 30"

Twisted Visions invites the onlooker into the unknown and the disorienting. It’s a scene, man.

Tuesday, April 17 - Saturday, May 12
Artist Talk: Saturday, April 28, 3 p.m.

Current Exhibition: Sally Jacobs, Ernie Marjoram, Toni Reinis, Jenny Revitz Soper

Tuesday, April 17 - Saturday, May 12
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 21, 5-8 p.m.
Artist Talk: Saturday, April 28, 3 p.m.

Sally Jacobs - Sunday At The Farmers Market

Sally Jacobs, Hydrangea, Watercolor, 17 x 19"

Ernie Marjoram - Selected Paintings

Ernie Marjoram, Eye Candy, Oil, 12 x 12"

Toni Reinis - Looking But Not Seeing

Toni Reinis, LaShanda, Clay with patina and steel wool, 18 x 13 x 11"

Jenny Revitz Soper - Twisted Visions

Jenny Revitz Soper, Metal Face: Yellow, Digitally twisted photograph, 24 x 18"

CA Open -- Call for Artists

The 13th Annual 2018 California Open is a juried exhibition celebrating contemporary and modern art. Artists 18 years and older may submit Computer Art, Drawing, Mixed Media, Painting, Printmaking, Photography, Sculpture, & now Video Works. Accepted work will be exhibited at TAG Gallery from August 8 - 25, 2018. All work will be for sale. The deadline for entry is June 23rd, 2018.

The Juror this year is Kim Abeles, an artist whose community-based projects explore biography, geography and environment. She has created projects with the California Science Center, air pollution control agencies, health clinics and mental health departments, and natural history museums in California, Colorado and Florida. Abeles received the 2013 Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, and has received fellowships from J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Arts, California Community Foundation and Pollack-Krasner Foundation.

For more information and/ or to apply please click HERE

Timeline:

Artist Spotlight: Daniel Rutkowski -- Strange Flora: A Foray Into Romance & the LED Dream

Daniel Rutkowski, If It All Burns, Archival Pigment Print, 12 x 16"

TAG is proud to host Daniel Rutkowski’s Strange Flora: A Foray into Romance & the LED Dream. This photographic series guides the onlooker down a visual odyssey where the concepts of our gorgeous, palpable, & fragile world merge with the strange digital flamboyance of our screens -- the death of romance, as told through pixels of our world’s flora.

Daniel Rutkowski, To Ooze, Archival Pigment Print, 20 x 16"

Technology and digitalization have truly infected and encapsulated our modern lives to a frightening extent. Like shadow to light, and yin to yang, they come in two disparate forms: the good and the bad.

Daniel Rutkowski, Naked & Blue, Archival Pigment Print, 20 x 16"

With newfound ease and rapid-fire knowledge, this computerized realm has the ability to provide wisdom in a fraction of a moment, able to heal, teach, inspire, and connect. It has the potential to sow and reap the greatest of all human cognition in the world... but under the beauty and unyielding strengths, comes another world, a world that holds its fair share of poisons in the form of pixels so utterly intriguing and distracting that we lose place in our own existence.

Daniel Rutkowski, Bomba, Archival Pigment Print, 12 x 16"

A form of absurd hand-held escapism, this LED facade allows for a window into a world where nothing can come close enough to harm or love you, where there is safety in the fact that the window remains closed. Where human interaction, genuine social awareness, and love don’t exist.

Daniel Rutkowski, Trigger Green, Archival Pigment Print, 16 x 20"

See the exhibition through Saturday, April 14th.

Meet Daniel at the Artist Talk: Saturday, April 7, 3 p.m.