North County’s art scene is booming and one of the leading names behind that is Oceanside Museum of Art (OMA). Home to a wide variety of rotating art exhibitions, OMA is celebrating the last month of summer with two brand new exhibitions, one available now and one opening later this month.
Plein Air Festival Juried Exhibition | Through October 10
The Plein Air Festival Juried Exhibition features paintings created during the week-long inaugural Plein Air Festival including artwork by featured artists Mark Fehlman, Danny Griego, Margaret Larlham, and Shuang Li. Out of the over 200 submissions, 40 were selected to be featured in this 10-week exhibition capturing the most iconic spots in Oceanside and beyond.
Featured in the exhibition is Durre Waseem, Plein Air Festival’s winner of Best in Show Award, Ryan Jensen, the Festival’s Second Place Award winner, Chuck Kovacic, the Festival’s Third Place and Strada Easel Awards winner, and many others.
The paintings selected for the exhibition are also available for auction, allowing visitors and collectors the rare opportunity to view and collect artworks from prominent and up-and-coming plein air painters. When viewing the exhibition, visitors can simply scan the QR code in the gallery on the How To signs to place their bid or visit the auction website here.
Contemporary Portraits from the Simay Collection | August 21-December 5
This exhibition of portraits drawn from the Doug Simay collection represents many styles and viewpoints. The exhibition seeks to evoke an emotional response from the viewer based on how we view portraits of people we know, versus those we don’t. Looking at a portrait of a person we know recalls our relationship to the subject, while looking at a portrait of a person we don’t know causes us to reflect on issues of identity, social class, and political intent.
In the image-laden internet age, we are faced with images of self and the “other” constantly. In our increasingly polarized world, we seek understanding of the “other.” There are three viewpoints in the static image of a portrait that make for a complex and loaded viewing experience–the qualities of the sitter or subject, the focus of the artist, and the response of the viewer.
Dean Ramos: Divisions | Through November 7
Vista-based sculptor, Dean Ramos, explores how figures and abstract forms interact with one another, the spaces they inhabit, and the materials from which they are formed. Ramos places an emphasis on materials, texture, weight, color, opacity, and the arrangement of parts.
With this body of work, he attempts to portray the body as both a tangible thing and a place of universal experience. Faceless, silent poses represent the body as a physical yet elusive dwelling place. Divisions within and between bodies suggest psychological and emotional states, human relationships, and the connections and disconnections which lie beneath the physical surface.
Melissa Walter: Smallest of Places | Through November 7
San Diego-based abstract and mixed media artist, Melissa Walter, combines art and science in this exhibition that explores the development of DNA analysis. The artwork provides an abstracted visual interpretation of the development of DNA analysis used to process criminal evidence.
Melissa uses a mark-making technique that goes from visceral to more precise, reflecting the evolution in accuracy as the technology has developed.
Taylor Chapin: Consumption Capital | Through September 12
Never look at a grocery store the same thanks to San Diego-based oil and acrylic painter, Taylor Chapin. This four-wall painting-based installation mimics a grocery store with the intent to evoke feelings of overwhelming claustrophobia in order to acknowledge the current age of anxiety and the role of extreme consumption in a period marked by pseudo-nourishment, both individually and globally.
The 21st-century shopper is inundated with a preposterously debilitating slew of choices for any given product. The series questions what it means to consume through an exploration of overabundant excess methodically deployed through painterly reproduction and repetition.
While referencing the mechanical structure of a chain grocery store, the objects represented in the paintings deny any logical structure of product organization. Shown in varying states of disarray, the work points to the hidden,
or not so hidden, cracks in our highly regimented economic and political system. Consumption Capital was developed at The Hillstreet Country Club in Oceanside, CA and expands on that 2019 exhibition Real Big Deals curated by Dinah Poellnitz.⠀
Mark Bryce: Love & War | Through September 19:
Comprised of 39 paintings, San Diego-based contemporary painter and visual artist, Mark Bryce, explores the deepening interest in universal topics such as love, violence, human frailty, and loneliness. Bryce pursues an open exploration of painting and uses paint and wood panel to skillfully investigate contemporary ideas and ideologies.
Deeply aware of the historical precedents of realist painting, he sometimes evokes images and memories, while at other times uses the elements of painting to its own end. With technical virtuosity, Bryce develops his narratives with cleverness and wit that engage the viewer in his distinctive artistic language. Fundamental to this exhibition is the commanding use of Bryce’s exquisite pictorial technique, capable of portraying an object, as well as a classic work of art, in the most faithful way.
Originally organized by the Centro Cultural Tijuana (CECUT), OMA expanded on that earlier exhibition with new works and situates the San Diego-based artist’s work within the social and political contexts that are essential to his practice. The newer paintings are anchored by a selection of earlier pieces that illustrate the breadth of his work and the vast possibilities of painting itself.
See you there….and stay healthy, San Diego!
