J o e B r u b a k e r : Between Worlds
J o e B r u b a k e r : Between Worlds
Joe Brubaker: Between Worlds Exhibition: December 1, 2018 - January 3, 2018 Reception for the Artist: Saturday, December 9, 5:30 - 7:30 pm Front Cover: Ajax, found materials, basswood, Douglas fir, acrylic paint and linseed oil with pigment, 66 x 18 x 60 in, Collaboration with Holden Crane (detail) Back Cover: Dark Moon I, 53 x 53 x 6 in, cedar, black paint, rubbed graphite (detail) Photo Credit: Charles Kennard Catalog Design: Donna Seager, Seager Gray Gallery Direct all inquiries to: Seager Gray Gallery 108 Throckmorton Ave. Mill Valley, CA 94941 All rights reserved.
Joe Brubaker: Between Worlds Joe Brubaker incorporates found and aged materials in his sculpture, lending their history and past life to the character of the works. He loves rust and faded paint, recognizeable parts of broken toys and the stuff of old machines – gears, wooden wheels and strips of old tire rubber, all beautifully patinaed with age. It appears that time itself comes into harmony in his carved characters and masterfully modulated abstract works. The theme of this year’s exhibition, Brubaker’s seventh with the gallery, is “Between Worlds,” a reference to his love of moving between figuration and abstraction and also, in his own words between “the finite limits of the physical world and the infinite possibilities of the creative process.” “I started out with figurative work, immersed in culture and the grit of everyday existence for ordinary people as in the “Everyday Saints” series,” says Brubaker. “In my “Somnambulist” series the figures began to morph and became more abstracted. I became concerned with our encounter with machines and how they are making the body disappear, changing the relationship we have with our own fragility. Finally, the abstract work, with minimal reference to the body, is my encounter with, without being too grandiose, the infinite. I think most abstract work leads that direction, as it creates a new language not dependent on literal references to our culture, biology and humanness.” It is in his last two exhibitions that Brubaker began to experiment with abstract wall works, often incorporating wooden figures into the composition. In his “Dark Moon Series #1,” he has truly refined the process, adding evenly drilled holes in the surface that bring the eye in and out of the composition. This work is an homage to Louise Nevelson, but they are significantly different in that Nevelson used found materials and Brubaker works primarily in wood which he can alter himself. Carved pieces using curved and rounded edges entice the viewer through the entire composition, and the graphite finish gives a luminous elegance to the finished work. His other abstract compositions – “Oxidation Series 1 and 2” and “White Moon” - further his experiments using rust and white milk paint. With the exception of “Isabelle,” “Serena” and “Roberto,” all of which have his signature milk paint and acrylic in various colors, Brubaker has restrained his palette in this grouping, giving them a close relationship to their original materials. One such material, bicycle inner tubes, are cut into strips. Rust, the faded gray of the rubber and the natural colors of the woods lend the works an earthy reference to their beginnings.
Joe Brubaker / Holden Crane
Ajax
2017, 66 x 18 x 60 in
found materials, linseed oil w/ pigment, basswood, Douglas fir, acrylic paint
From “Enrique,” a figure whose energy comes from balancing on a ball, to “Dimitrius,” standing tall with his pointed hat, the sculptures are each complete in their own way and beautiful in their natural tonality. Central to the exhibition are two works that Brubaker created in collaboration with fellow artists and friends – Holden Crane and Guy Mayenobe. Brubaker loves collaboration. “It is artistic cross-training,” he says. “I learn and expand from their skillset and point of view and they learn from mine.” In “Ajax,” Crane has created a roughhewn figure striding forward. Brubaker removed an arm and replaced it with the handle and wheel of an antique Chinese wheelbarrow, creating an uncanny balance. Our hero can advance, but only by pushing the weight of the wheel forward. The expression on the face of the figure that Brubaker carved, with the slight tilt of the head as if straining and the look of pure determination, add to the sense of epic strength and adaptation to adversity. “Sisyphus,” Brubaker’s collaboration with Mayenobe, is equally epic, albeit a little more humorously so. A fan of artists like Jean Tinguely, whose sculptural machines satirized the world around him, Mayenobe created a mechanized kinetic tripod that Brubaker topped with a wooden fellow in striped pants -- a kind of cross between Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton – who kicks a ball along a ramp that rolls it back to him to be kicked again and again ad infinitum, replicating the human dilemma of never giving up despite efforts that might appear futile – the noble “everyman.” Small bust works, like the proud and dark “Josie” and the metal-clad couple “Lionel” and “Gabriella,” give testament to the wide range of Brubaker’s skills and unerring instincts for creating works that both surprise us and seem completely themselves, resurrected as they are from the heaps of found materials and the endless store of imagination and curiosity that has kept him and his viewers engaged these many years.
Joe Brubaker
Dark Moon I (left) 2017, 53 x 53 x 6 in
cedar, black paint, rubbed graphite
Enrique (right)
2012 - 2017, 46 x 12 x 12 in
found materials, yellow cedar, milk and acrylic paint
Joe Brubaker
Dimitrius (left)
2017, 64 x 14 x 14 in
found materials, pinewood, milk and acrylic paint
Oxidation Series #2 (right) 2017, 48 x 50 x 2 in
found materials, various woods, milk paint and rust medium
Joe Brubaker
White Moon (left) 2017, 55 x 56 x 3 in
found materials, cedar, pine, milk paint
Joe Brubaker / Holden Crane
Homunculus (right)
2015 - 2017, 72 x 12 x 14 in
found materials, Douglas fir, basswood, milk and acrylic paint
Joe Brubaker
Max (left)
2017, 57 x 11.5 x 10 in
found materials, basswood, milk and acrylic paint
Oxidation Series #1 (right) 2017, 55 x 40 x 3.5 in
found materials, various woods, milk paint and rust medium
Joe Brubaker
Benjamin
2015 - 2017, 64 x 14 x 12 in
found materials, pinewood, milk and acrylic paint
Joe Brubaker
Carmen
2012 - 2017, 62 x 11.5 x 9 in
found materials, Alaskan yellow cedar, milk and acrylic paint
Joe Brubaker
Isabelle
2001, 15 x 11.5 x 6 in
Alaskan yellow cedar, acrylic, glass
Joe Brubaker
Josie
2007, 18 x 12 x 8 in
found materials, redwood, acrylic paint
Joe Brubaker
Gabriella
2007, 22 x 10 x 7 in
found materials, sealed lead sheet, acrylic paint
Joe Brubaker
Lionel
2007, 20 x 12 x 4 in
found materials, sealed lead sheet, acrylic paint
Joe Brubaker
Beth
2006, 32 x 7 x 6 in
found materials, cedar, milk and acrylic paint
Joe Brubaker
Serena
2017, 22 x 9.5 x 5 in
found materials, basswood, milk paint
Joe Brubaker
Electra
2017, 23 x 4.5 x 4.5 in
found materials, Alaskan yellow cedar, milk paint, gold leaf
Joe Brubaker
Joshua
2017, 24 x 6 x 5 in
found materials, basswood, milk paint
Joe Brubaker
Rachel
2014, 16 x 5 x 5 in
cedar, acrylic paint, prismacolor
Joe Brubaker
Roberto
2017, 16 x 10 x 6 in
found materials, basswood, milkpaint
Joe Brubaker
Phillip
2017, 38 x 6 x 7 in
found materials, cedar, prismacolor, milk and acrylic paint
Joe Brubaker
Suzanne
2017, 14 x 6 x 6 in
found materials, basswood, milk paint
Joe Brubaker
Michael
2000, 6.5 x 3 x 3 in
bronze and prismacolor
Joe Brubaker / Guy Mayenobe
Sisyphus
2017, 61 x 32 x 10 in
bronze and prismacolor
Joe Brubaker E ducation BFA Sacramento State University 1976 MFA : UCLA 1980 Solo Exhibitions 2017 Seager Gray Gallery, Betweem Worlds, Mill Valley, CA 2015 Seager Gray Gallery, Lost and Found, Mill Valley, CA Sue Greenwood Fine Arts, Laguna Beach, CA 2014 - Seager Gray Gallery, The Long Voyage, Mill Valley, CA 2012 - Sue Greenwood Fine Arts, Laguna Beach, CA 2012 - Seager Gray Gallery, Everyday Saints, Mill Valley, CA. 2010 - Sue Greenwood Fine Arts, Laguna Beach, CA. 2009 -Sue Greenwood Fine Arts, Laguna Beach, CA 2009- Palo Alto Art Center, Retrospective Exhibition, Palo Alto, CA 2008- Sue Greenwood Fine Arts Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA 2008- Donna Seager Gallery,San Rafael, CA 2007 - Sue Greenwood Fine Arts Gallery, Laguna Beach CA 2007 - Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael CA 2006 - Grover-Thurston Gallery, Seattle WA 2005 - Greenwood-Chebithes Gallery, Laguna Beach CA 2006 - Sue Greenwood Fine Arts Gallery, Laguna Beach CA 2005 - Beth Urdang Gallery, Boston MA 2004 - Greenwood-Chebithes Gallery, Laguna Beach CA 2003 - Greenwood-Chebithes Gallery, Laguna Beach CA 2002 - Grover-Thurston Gallery, Seattle WA 2002 - Allene Lapides Gallery, Santa Fe NM 2001 - Susan Cummins Gallery, Mill Valley CA 2000 - Grover-Thurston Gallery, Seattle WA 1999 - Susan Cummins Gallery, Mill Valley CA 1998 - Marin Open Studios, San Anselmo CA 1997 - Susan Cummins Gallery, Mill Valley CA 1997 - Marin Open Studios, San Anselmo CA 1996 - Marin Open Studios, San Anselmo CA 1995 - Marin Open Studios, San Anselmo CA 1995 - Academy of Art Bush St. Gallery, San Francisco CA 1980 - U.C.L.A. Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles CA 1976 - Upstairs Gallery, Sacramento CA Group Exhibitions
2012 – Sue Greenwood, Joe Brubaker, Maurice Gray, Chris Gwaltney 2012 – Seager Gray Gallery, Summer Salon: Materials, Mill Valley, CA 2006 - Inaugural Exhibition, Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael CA 2005 - M.A.C. Exhibit, Marin Civic Center, San Rafael CA 2003 - M.A.C. Exhibit, Marin Civic Center, San Rafael CA 2003 - “Mind Over Metal”, Art Works Downtown, San Rafael CA 1998 - Biennial Crocker-Kingsley Exhibition, Crocker Museum,
1998 - Grantees Awards Exhibition, Marin Arts Council, Falkirk
1998 - “Outside in, Inside out”, Marin Civic Center, San Rafael CA 1998 - “In Human Form”, Maude Kerns Art Center, Eugene Oregon 1997 - Marin Arts Council Members show, Corte Madera CA 1997 - Annual jury show, Fairfield Arts Center, Fairfield CA 1997 - “Small Works” show, Susan Cummins Gallery, Mill Valley CA 1997 “Introductions” show, Susan Cummins Gallery, Mill Valley CA 1996 -
Marin Arts Council Members show, Corte Madera CA 1996 - “3 Artists” Vallejo Arts Center, Vallejo CA 1995 - Marin Arts Council Members show, Corte Madera CA 1995 - Italian Street Painting Festival, San Rafael CA 1995 - Group show, Coffee Roastery, San Anselmo CA 1995 - Annual jury show, Gallery 825, Los Angeles CA 1995 - “Seen/Unseen” juried show, University of New Mexico 1995 - “Masks” Marin Shakespeare Company, San Rafael CA 1995 - “All Saints All Souls” show, Falkirk Center, San Rafael CA 1994 - Marin Arts Council Members show, Corte Madera CA 1978 - Group show, Wight Gallery, U.C.L.A., Los Angeles CA 1975 - Group show, Sacramento State, Sacramento CA Exquisite Garden Collaborative Installations: Joe Brubaker has assembled a team of collaborators who go into museum and art center spaces with a load of found and assembled materials and transform the space together using what they have brought. 2015 - Foundspace, Exquisite Garden Collaborative, Jackson Hole Wyoming (in collaboration with the Jackson Hole Land Trust Foundation.) 2014 - Museum of Craft and Design, Visible Transparency, Brubaker Retrospective and Exquisite Garden Installation, San Francisco, CA 2013 - The Nest Project, 55 Linden, Oakland CA
2014 - artMRKT, Seager Gray Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2012 - Cannon Art Center, The Exquisite Garden Project, Carlsbad, CA.
2013 - Context Art Miami, Seager Gray Gallery, Miami, FL
Center, San Rafael CA
2015 - artMRKT, Seager Gray Gallery, San Francisco, CA Aqua Art Miami, Seager Gray Gallery, Miami, FL
Sacramento CA
2011 - Campovida, Outdoor Installation,Hopland,CA. 2010 - Bakersfield Museum of Art, The Exquisite Garden Project , Bakersfield, CA.