Commune at the Union Gallery

Commune: Art by the FORM Collective has been on view this month in the Union Gallery at Sacramento State and will be showing through this coming Thursday.  The exhibit displays a variety of style, medium, and subject matter.  These artists' works, however, seem to come together as a group under the use of bright expressive colors and expressionistic brushwork.

Mustafa Shaheen, Claire R., Oil on Canvas.

The FORM Collective is composed of student artists who came together to create art as a collective in the summer of 2014.  There seems to be connections to Art History in their pieces.  Claire R., the above painting by Mustafa Shaheen, bares a resemblance to the brightly multicolored faces of fauvist painters, especially in the portraits painted by André Derain with his painterly brush strokes.  Some of the same ideas but conceptualized completely differently is the mixed media painting below, Madonna of the Demon Breasts 2.  John Chanthaphone utilizes the same kinds of colors in his work but uses them to highlight the figure, instead of using them to create it.

John Chanthaphone, Detail of Madonna of the Demon Breasts 2, 

Mixed Media on Canvas.

In the detail of the painting below, the observer can see similar influences.  The thick application of paint echos Claire R. and post-impressionistic painters.  The bright colors also continue in this painting, but again, the way that hey are used is distinct in Lindsey McGrath's Midnight Storm.  The deep blues and reds contrast and create an eerie scene.  The deep red in the figure's shoes take on a bloody look and the inky blues evoke a dark, stormy, hopeless night.  The mixture of the colors in the leg of the figure (white, blue, purple, green, red and yellow at first glance) create an interesting play against the deep jewel tones of the shoes and ground.

Lindsey McGrath, Detail of Midnight Storm, Oil on Panel.

One of the most enrapturing works for me at this showing, was the painting on paper below, Grandmother by Caiti Chan.  The abstract painting forms the face of an elderly woman, her face white and his eyes and mouth a bright orchid purple.  This painting is abstract, but it calls to me for other reasons.  I can't tell what the grandmother's eyes look like, what she might be trying to tell me, but I can't help but feel like they're deeply sad, and I can't help looking at her.

Caiti Chan, Grandmother, House Paint on Paper.

Collective: Art by the FORM Collective will be on view in the Union Gallery at Sacramento State through March 19th.