In conjunction with the festive Kettner Nights on April 21 in the bustling Kettner Art and Design District, and on April 29 and 30, the David Zapf gallery will be showcasing art from 24 gallery artists. The artists’ pieces encompass works of photography, woodworking, oil painting, contemporary sculptures, ethereal landscapes, mojos, figurative pieces, glass and collages.
Art will include the photographs and paintings by Doris Bittar from some of her recent travels in the Middle East. Bittar was a scholar for six months at the American University in Beirut and lived there at the time former Lebanese Primi Minister Hariri was assassinated. She shows earthy photographs of everyday living in many of the Middle East communities, including schoolchildren, unassuming people in their homes working, playing or socializing with a pot of tea, wildflowers and fences enclosing parameters within the small village separated only by a pond or hill from aggressive gunfire.
Twylla Talley’s soft-color toned prints reveal a delightful aspect of the desert. Not only does she spend time arranging her lens to catch the right composition, she is diligent in the processing process, and her technique is as precise as where she places the camera. She said that this definition of detail is probably a result of her years as a radiology technologist.
The polylith prints by Eric Blau, a La Jolla photographer, vary from sepia to warmish flesh tones. Blau began as a street photographer and has become a master studio photographer who is much admired by his peers. It is the polylith process of nontraditional development and illusion that softens the drama that may be associated with the subject.
The imaginative and extraordinarily creative art by Christopher Lee has ascended into a higher level, from his large-scale floor sculptures emanating from the artist’s provocative “Mojo Stick” series to small, intimate desk sculptures.
Ann Mudge’s whimsical stainless steel taproots will be exhibited. There is something magical about Mudge’s entwined, twisted, silver roots that enchant all. Continuing the whimsical theme will be book illustrations by Deloss McGraw and Poupee Boccaccio’s wooden boxes filled with bits and pieces of butterflies and bugs that ask for further inspection, creating their own mystery and interest. Appalling lifesize fatty females in black charcoal on canvas in stages of nudity with wizened and rotund bodies by Tania Candiani have an adult whimsy of their own.
Oil paintings by Nancy Kittredge too have their mysterious aura. Large canvases of the sea with huge boulders jutting out are softened by the ethereal soft, ghost-like humanoids floating in and about the boulders. A keen eye will unshroud these ghostly figures among the sea mist.
Jeff Hanna’s bright-colored collages from the ’40s and ’50s lend an imaginative playfulness in “Egyptian Court.” The spaceship soars above an Egyptian desert stucco building. The ink and watercolor collage defines a time of playful imaginations filled with primary colors of red, green and yellow.
This is an art exhibition that will delight, entrance and mystify viewers, but for certain, there is more than enough to ponder with animated enthusiasm.
An opening reception will be held on Friday, April 21, 6-9 p.m. at the David Zapf Gallery, 2400 Kettner Blvd., (619) 232-5004, [email protected]. Hours: Thursday, Friday and Saturday – 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. and by appointment. The show ends May 21.
As a note, The Kettner Art and Design District will soon have a new name, TADD, The Art and Design District and will include other Little Italy businesses along Columbia, India and Fir streets.
