Shannon Sullivan, a Professor of Art at the College of the Redwoods, focuses on crystalline forms in the natural environment. “I explore minimalism on a formal and deeply personal level,” says Sullivan of her work. Her ceramic forms exemplify the dazzling geometry of natural form, using and minimal color schemes that catch the eye.
While Sullivan focuses on the microcosm of landscape, artist Kara Nelson uses found objects in collage to craft a broader image of environments and how to care for them. Nelson uses her own trash and mixed media to generate new life and bring attention to how waste is harmful to the environments she portrays. Her work changes perspective on the detrimental realities of how garbage affects nature.
Of her work she states, “by taking something that inhibits life and using it to create something that represents it, I hope to call attention to the function waste can serve.”
While Sullivan and Nelson focus in and transform aspects of landscape, Joshua Martinez, a graduate of Humboldt State, utilizes the camera to distort and create a mythology of everyday experiential nature. His photographs, muted and dark, hold a mysterious energy and prompt the viewer to recognize the “immediate changes in illumination” of the natural setting.
In his process, Martinez explains that, “tactile darkroom methods allow [him] the ability to use exposure and development (themselves immersive processes) to study the intersection between the perceptual and imaginative experience of the landscape.”
To experience the fusion of these three perspectives, visit the Reese Bullen Gallery, located inside HSU’s Art building at the intersection of B Street and Laurel streets in Arcata. The gallery is open Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 12-5 p.m., Thursday 12-7 p.m., Friday 12-5 p.m., and Saturday 10-2 p.m. Admission is free.
For more information, contact the gallery office at (707) 826-5814 or rbg@humboldt.edu. For parking information, visit humboldt.edu/parking.