The R.B. Stevenson Gallery is located in the “Art + Design” building at 7661 Girard Ave. At the top of 35 steps of a narrow, four-tiered right-turning stair well is a total surprise — a large loft-like room with high ceilings, painted all in white. On the walls are very high-caliber colorful, modern, works of art, tastefully placed. At the back of the gallery space is a well-designed, elevated office space that overlooks the gallery like an eagle’s perch. Stevenson is offering his annual end-of-the-year show called “Just Enough,” which will run until Dec. 18. The show features the work of six contemporary living artists: Pegan Brooke, Jimi Gleason, Richard Allen Morris, Michael Reafsnyder, Peter Stephens and Thomas Zitzwitz. Stevenson has been at his current location for the past seven years. Before that, he was located in Little Italy for five years, and for the 10 years prior to that his gallery was near the Pannikin Coffee Shop on Girard Avenue. Stevenson was born in Michigan and educated at the Center for Creative Studies at Wayne State University. In 1989, he came to California for the warm weather, and worked framing pictures. He soon opened a gallery in La Jolla because, he said, “La Jolla was the right place” and “it needed some more creativity.” Stevenson represents more than 25 artists and does rotating shows in which he “creates a theater for the artists to show their work,” he said. Show artist Pegan Brooke, who earned her MFA at Stanford School of Painting, has two paintings on view, both featuring her favorite colors, orange and yellow. She said she is inspired by French philosopher Henri Bergson, as well as “the light, water and flow of the river near Port Aven, France. “By combining color (light), translucent glaze (water), linear brush strokes (flow) and delicately painted dots (duration), my intention is to find a way to communicate through paint the fleeting nature of experience and the flowing nature of being,” she said. Jimi Gleason, who was educated at the San Francisco Art Institute, has six works in the show, which are luminous, refractory and ethereal. Two are paintings and four are mixed media, made with acrylic, chrome and oil — which together form a thick, shiny crust. Gleason calls his work “a frozen moment for colors to parade a visual riddle.” Richard Allen Morris is a world-renowned local artist who has been in San Diego since he got out of the Navy in 1956. He is completely self-taught. Stevenson describes Morris as “a pure artist who is eccentric, a bit of a hermit and totally involved in his artwork, with little concern for worldly things.” Morris has a series of eight small paintings, which look like globs of colored clay thrown creatively onto canvas. Michael Reafsnyder was educated at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He has three abstract paintings on display which are the centerpiece of the entire show. His work has been called “frivolous, luscious, sensuous, vivid, outrageous, chaotic, out of control and beastly.” “Painting purchases a space, socially and pictorially, through which the artist reconstitutes and restructures the world,” Reafsnyder said. Peter Stephens, a graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago, has a set of four linked paintings that look like large floor tiles from a distance. They are based on NASA photographs of the surface of the moon and Mars. Thomas Zitzwitz lives near Cologne, Germany. He was educated at Hochschule fur Gestatun Karlsrube and New York University. He has two paintings in the show, both of which seem to move as you change your viewing position. His work has been called “dazzling, luminescent, buoyant and gleaming visual theater.” Walking up the stairs to the gallery is a challenge for any patron, but there is an elevator that can be is accessed through Biaazza Tile Store on the ground floor of the building. For further information see rbstevensongallery.com or call (858) 459-3917 or e-mail [email protected].
