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July 20, 2019 to January 5, 2020
Fresno-based artist, Nick Potter, features new paintings created in 2018 and 2019
in this solo exhibition entitled Constructed Utopias. Potter was born and raised in
London, England then moved to the United States in 1999. He is currently a Professor at California State University, Fresno.
Constructed Utopias is the artist's first one-person exhibition at the Fresno Art Museum. Potter is recognized for his supra-realistic depictions of spare interior spaces, mid-century modern furnishings, compositions of vintage social scenes, and isolated architectural monoliths in surreal settings.
The new paintings will be seen for the first time in the Museum's Hallowell Gallery. They are oils on canvas; they are large format; they emote a time gone by; they tell us familiar stories while encouraging us to make up our own narratives.
Exhibition Curator: Michele Ellis Pracy, FAM Executive Director & Chief Curator
Image: Nick Potter,
North to the Future, 2018, Oil on canvas, 5 1/2' x 7' and detail,
Order and Progress, 2019, Oil on canvas, 5 1/2' x 7'
July 20, 2019 to January 5, 2020
Sausalito, California-based painter, Heather Wilcoxon, is the Council of 100's honoree for 2019 making her the thirty-first consecutive woman artist bestowed this award by the Fresno Art Museum. Wilcoxon has B.A. and M.F.A. degrees from the San Francisco Art Institute and is represented by the Jack Fischer Gallery in San Francisco. She is widely exhibited and has works in the permanent collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Triton Museum of Art, the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, and the Maine College of Art, among others.
Recent paintings include a focus on boats at sea including immense canvases where broken hulls and powerful silhouettes emerge off the canvas almost at our feet. Wilcoxon's exhibition includes paintings, monoprints, and ceramics completed in the last few years, as well as several early paintings from the mid-1990s.
Exhibition Curator: Michele Ellis Pracy, FAM Executive Director & Chief Curator
Image: Heather Wilcoxon,
Spill, 2016, 48" x 60" and the Artist with her art, Photo courtesy of Peter Strietmann
Exhibition Support from A Friend of the Museum and John Scholefield and Kristene Petrucci Scholefield
July 20, 2019 to January 5, 2020
Painter, sculptor, and land art/installation artist, Carmen Hoyos, was born in Bogotá, Colombia and has lived, worked, and exhibited in Brussels, Paris, and Madrid over the course of her artistic life. She now resides in Fresno, establishing her home and studio here.
Hoyos' medium is plastic: hard (Plexiglas) or malleable (cellophane) which she carves, folds, paints, layers, wraps, or suspends. Her exhibitions can be gallery-confined or environmental site-specific momentary installations.
Happily, the Fresno Art Museum exhibition combines both of the artist's approaches. In the Lobby Gallery will be installed wall-based works on Plexiglas she has kept in her personal collection.
The Concourse and Administration Lobbies will house new site-specific cellophane and Plexiglas works created especially for the Fresno Art Museum spaces.
The Sculpture Garden will have an installation of a field of red plastic flowers.
"What matters to me is that my constructions become imprints on memory and nourish our imagination to become the personal breeding ground for future actions. Nature feeds my work."
Exhibition Curators: Michele Ellis Pracy, FAM Executive Director & Chief Curator and Sarah Vargas, FAM Curator
Image: Carmen Hoyos,
Untitled works, Acrylic paint and Plexiglas, Courtesy of the Artist
July 20, 2019 to January 5, 2020
California native Catie O'Leary works in collage. Collage techniques have been around for thousands of years, but Cubist artists Braque and Picasso are often attributed with coining the word in the early 20th century from the French
coller meaning "to glue." The art movements of Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism embraced collage, establishing it as an integral part of modern art. It has continued to be a prominent aspect of contemporary art. O'Leary was influenced by the work of Jess Collins (known simply as Jess) whose collages inspired her to abandon all other forms of art and dedicate herself to collage. She takes original engravings from antique books and creates intricate and whimsical landscapes woven together by layering meticulously cut out pieces of paper. Her work blends the contemporary and the classical, weaving together traditional imagery in an inventive and innovative manner to examine the relationship between the natural and human worlds.
Exhibition Curator: Sarah Vargas, FAM Curator
Image: Catie O'Leary,
Visual Stories-Table, 2017, Collage with antique engravings, 10" x 9", Courtesy of the Artist and
Untitled (Tower II), 2014, Paper collage, 12" x 8 3/4", Courtesy of the Artist
July 20, 2019 to June 28, 2020
It has been said that Will Bullas makes art fun! He is a master watercolorist with a sense of humor and wit that is often unexpected. He has award-winning artistic skills, and his creative works are unique and often full of whimsy.
The illustrations in this exhibition are somewhat of a departure from Bullas' customary adult-centric humorous style full of visual puns and imaginative titles. In keeping with the theme of children's book illustration art, the works shown are Bullas' illustrations from an alphabet book written by David Domeniconi called
M is for Masterpiece: An Art Alphabet. While the subject matter of the artwork in this exhibition is different than his usual fare, it shows off the creative talent of this artist through his unusual compositions that illustrate single art-related words or artist names from A to Z. The sophistication and detailed compositions should capture the attention of both young and old.
Exhibition Curator: Susan Yost Filgate, FAM Education Director
Image: Will Bullas,
D is for Drawing, Watercolor on Crescent 100# illustration board, 13" x 18",
M is for Museum, Watercolor on Crescent 100# illustration board, 13" x 18" (Both from the book
M is for Masterpiece.)
Exhibition funded in part by the Bonner Family Foundation and The Foundation@FCOE
General Exhibition Support from Christy V. Hicks, Anita M. Shanahan, Robert Truxell, Richard and Diane Watters, Deborah & Ron Monis, and
and David & MaryAnne Esajian
For more information or to schedule previews or interviews with the curators or artists, please contact Executive Director and Chief Curator Michele Ellis Pracy at 559.441.4221 x103 or by email to michele@fresnoartmuseum.org
