GR601_Narrative Design_Stella_Dong

RORRIM

MIRROR

Gretchen Batcheller Perin Mahler Alkaid Ramirez Beth Davila Waldman JANUARY 29–APRIL 16 IRVINE FINE ARTS CENTER Opening Reception: Saturday, January 29, 2–4 p.m.

Free admission

RORRIM

MIRROR

DETAILS Start: January 29 End: April 16

VENUE Irvine Fine Arts Center 14321 Yale Ave.

OPENING RECEPTION Saturday, January 29, 2–4 p.m.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

The works on view in Mirror employ anecdotal and personal narratives as points of departure toward exploring ideas of fragmentation and ambivalence. Each exhibiting artist’s work prompts viewers to consider the boundaries between the real and imagined and the fragile delineation between the personal and the social.

For more information on exhibitions, visit irvinefinearts.org

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Beth Davila Waldman

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Gretchen Batcheller Perin Mahler Alkaid Ramirez Beth Davila Waldman

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Perin Mahler Most recently he has Chaired the MFA program in painting and drawing at Laguna College of Art and Design.

Bio about Perin Mahler Perin Mahler is an educator and fine artist. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, Hartford and an MFA in Painting from Queens College, CUNY in New York City. Over a twenty-year career in

"Piazza", 2006 Oil on canvas, 30" x 48"

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education, he has taught at several colleges and universities including The University of Cincinnati, The Art Academy of Cincinnati, Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan. Most recently he has Chaired the MFA program in painting and drawing at Laguna College of Art and Design. His work is represented in several museum collections as well as prominent private collections. He has had numerous group and one-person exhibitions around the country. In 2009, he was honored to be a finalist in the Outwin Boochever portrait competition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. His current body of work, titled Autobiographies, is a series of large single and multifigure paintings dealing with personal subjects including narratives from domestic and professional experiences.

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Possessed, 2021, oil on canvas, 68 x 48 in.

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In these works I use the format of history painting, normally associated with the heroic and eternal, to depict quotidian subjects.

House, 2017 oil on anvas, 24 x 32

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Beth Davila Waldman Bio about Beth Davila Waldman Born in Princeton, New Jersey in 1975, Beth Davila Waldman pursued her career in the arts initially at Wellesley College where she launched her current practice with a senior sculptural thesis entitled “Transposing Time and Culture: Personal and Abstract Interpretations of Inca and Pre-Incan Artwork”.

She continued her commitment to exploring site as her conceptual focus at SFAI from 2003 to 2005. Her work was recognized early on by the San Francisco Art Institute community with the 2004 annual Harold E. Weiner Memorial Sculpture Award.

Since, her art practice has been influenced by borrowed symbols and the landscapes from her maternal homeland Peru as well as other international

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sites such as Hong Kong and Vietnam.

Beth uses image, material, and architecture to speak about transformations on culture over time on the individual and society. Through landscape, Beth examines how politics and economics create shift on culture on macro and micro levels. Her work excavates the conceived idea of sanctuary, using the colonized and converted cultures of her Peruvian ancestors as a gateway for those dialogues.

A cross-disciplinary artist using photography, painting, assemblage and installation.

Beth has been awarded residencies at 18th Street Art Residency, Kala Art Institute, Playa Institute, and Edition Basel in Basel, Switzerland. In 2019, her work was featured at a satellite art fair during the 2019 Hong Kong Art Basel Week and she presented her work along with David Maisel for 18th Annual Photo Alliance Lecture Series at the San Francisco Art Institute’s Osher Lecture Hall. Most recently, Beth’s work was part of a group exhibition the de Young OPEN at the San Francisco based de Young Museum. Beth’s studio is currently based in Los Angeles, CA.

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Waldman’s constructed vistas re-conceive the notion of sanctuary amidst the realities of colonization.

Artist Statement Divisions No. 8, 2021, Archival Pigment,

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Gel and Acrylic Paint on Tarp and Canvas, 38x78in

Beth Davila Waldman is a cross disciplinary artist using the photography, painting, assemblage and installation.

Her work explores the impact of sociopolitical trends on cultural landscapes, often through imagery laden with indicators of economic and social status, presented in a manner that emulates the sheer stress of imposed change.

The visions constructed by Waldman reimagine the concept of sanctuary within a colonial reality and invite reflection on civic access.

Divisions No. 7, 2021, Archival Pigment, Gel and Acrylic Paint on Tarp and Canvas, 38x77in

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Gretchen Batcheller Bio about Gretchen Batcheller Los Angeles artist Gretchen Batcheller deftly combines airbrush, acrylic and oil painting media to create paintings that bridge figurative realism and abstraction. Her work can be ebullient, cathartic and aggressive, and at other times, unsettlingly still. There is a palpable potency to her work that is deeply connected to her own personal narrative as a military dependent and the space and sensations that currently surround her. Her work reflects a deep exploration of color, pattern and rhythm that echo throughout the compositions of her paintings. They also reveal a self-consciousness derived from multilayered examination of memory, nostalgia, and personal reflections

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on systems of oppression found throughout militarized regions of the Pacific.

Gretchen’s paintings have been featured in numerous regional, national and international venues including the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art in Los Angeles, CA; Burgenland State Gallery in Eisenstadt, Austria; and the Jeju Museum of Contemporary Art in South Korea.

A cross-disciplinary artist using photography, painting, assemblage and installation.

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Work in progress Airbrush, acrylic and oil on paper; 48x48 in.

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Work in progress Oil on canvas, 96x84 in.

Husbands And Wives May Sit Together 2013, acrylic and oil on canvas, 40x30in.

Peculiar and Mysterious 2010, oil on linen, 70x100cm

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Alkaid Ramirez BIO about Alkaid Ramirez Alkaid Ramirez is an Anaheim-based photographer, practicing documentary photography in Anaheim over the past years. Ramirez uses the film photography medium to capture the integral scenes, stories, and civil unrest in his community that contribute to larger conversations about social inequality and inequity.

His work relates specifically to the systemic challenges of working-class immigrants and marginalized communities. He is inspired by both the need to document these struggles

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in order to challenge them as well as to bear witness to the cultural significance for future generations while focusing on significant places and periods of his own life that contribute to his identity as a child of resilient immigrant parents and a second-generation Chicano who subconsciously assimilated into colonized spaces and is deconstructing the product of assimilating.

“His work relates to the systemic challenges of working-class immigrants and marginalized communities.”

Life images from cypress swapmeet.

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Life images from cypress swapmeet. The frames are made from Oilcloths, and covered with thin clear plastic.

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CREDITS

Curator: Virginia Arce

Artists: Gretchen Batcheller Perin Mahler Alkaid Ramirez Beth Davila Waldman

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The works on view in Mirror employ anecdotal and personal narratives as points of departure toward exploring ideas of fragmentation and ambivalence. Each exhibiting artist’s work prompts viewers to consider the boundaries between the real and imagined and the fragile delineation between the personal and the social.