Grand Central Arts Center Makes Way for Resident Art Show
Categories: visual art
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| Grand Central's artists in residence. Pictured from left to right: David Brokaw, John Hedrick, Tim Hogan, Seth Hawkins, Greg Eberhardt, Monica Chapon, Preston Daniels, Patrick Strand, Kevin Stewart-Magee. Those not pictured: Jacob Lecuyer, Melissa Johnson, Eric Jones, Tiffany, Ma, Hala Swearingen, Greg Swearingen, and Neil Sharum. |
On the road to being a successful, well-paid artist (well, relatively speaking in most cases), the importance of earning your stripes in a respected residency program, can be the equivalent of earning a Fast Track pass to rewarding opportunities. Inside a studio space at Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, resident sculptors David Brokaw and Preston Daniels are busy working on a huge project for Tim Burton, a piece that will become part of the director's retrospection exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in November. Need we say more?
Well, actually we should. Because it was program contacts and help from GCAC's artist residency program through Cal State Fullerton's grad arts department and opportunities to show case their work at the center's renowned exhibits that helped make it possible.
"Grand Central was one of the really big perks about Cal State Fullerton that I really wasn't aware of when I first visited," said Brokaw, a kinetic sculpture artist. He trades in a mixture of technology and sculpture to create "the illusion of life".
The work of Daniels and Preston, along with the rest of GCAC's resident artists will be spotlighted at the center's Resident's Art exhibition opening Saturday, Oct. 3 in the Sales Gallery. The reception is happening from 7 to 10 p.m.
GCAC takes artists from all mediums into their residency program, provided of course you're either faculty or a grad student at CSUF. Oh, and as long as you're ridiculously talented. A lot of the residents have even produced some work you might recognize, whether it's a Charlotte's Web book cover done by illustrator Hala Swearingen or a gigantic public mural by Kevin Stewart Magee, the residents have art on display everywhere.
Stewart, who will exhibit a collection of paintings for the show that revolve around the subtle interpretations of emotions manifested as colors, has a day job painting murals all over Southern California, most notable retail stores like Whole Foods and Wal-Mart totaling 85 to 100 murals in the region . He decided to return to art school to pursue his more personal artistic endeavors. His current work in the exhibition is done on recycled materials using paint to "explore how twilight feels in California in the Suburbs."
In addition to be able to show off their work at exhibits like the one happening next month, another pleasure of being a resident, according to illustrator Jacob Lecuyer, is being able to live and work in the company of so many up and coming artists.
"When I got into [CSUF's graduate arts program], I was probably more excited about getting into [GCAC] than I was I was getting into graduate school," he said.
Oct. 3 will be Lecuyer's second exhibition where he'll be showing off ten illustrations based on a mixture of video games and comic books from his childhood.
The exhibit is scheduled to open the same day as Grand Central's faculty exhibition and guests are also allowed to tour the work spaces of the resident artists, as well as their finished pieces.
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