For the first time after 40 years Cerritos College brought back to campus a historical art gallery show, based on 24 Southern California Women Artists. The show was reviewed in art week by artist Faith Wilding.
Artist painter Suzanne, Jocelyn Casas, Heejung Choi and other’s were be at the art gallery show.
Art gallery curator:
- Henderson Blumer
Artist painting that were at the gallery:
- Suzanne Joskow
- Jocelyn Casas
- Heejung Choi
- Sydney Aubert
- Nathan Gulick
- Deb Adams-Welles
- Kiara Alvarado
- Will Bryant
- Robert Begley
- Amanda Benefiel
- Liz Cardman
- Dana Duff
- Austyn de Lugo
- Irene Flatley
- Mark x Farina
- Annetta Kapon
- Karim Shuquem
- Lucas McDaniel
- Renee Petropoulos
- Gina Valona
- Emily Thorpe
- Loto Ball
The painting from “Twenty Four Southern California Women Artists,” Jan. 1977.
Joskow shared her thoughts and feelings saying that when she originally found out the art artist were going to have access the space in the old Fine Art building the first thing Blumer and Joskow looked at was the history of the space.
By doing that they found out something very exceptional which was that exactly 40 years ago, on January 1977 there was a show “Twenty Four Southern California Women Artist,” that was happening at a really interested time for women, in Los Angeles, and in the country.
Blumer and Joskow felt that had a lot of resonance to what is going on now.
Blumer said, “Speaking to like how relevant is today on Saturday, Jan. 21, we participated on the women’s march that happened in down town L.A. which was one of the largest gatherings of people to support women’s rights.
“The kind of frame we are thinking today is how our artist on the Southern California, in L.A., I’m always think about feminism and women’s rights and how does it represent in our art work,” he said.
What used to be an empty space with white walls, slowly got converted into an art gallery.
Joskow said, “It’s history in general what happened is that when we found out this history we went back to our artist and said, ‘look, we do arts women and men, look, this is the history of the space we will be in, is our feeling that everyone should be interested or at least respond to be accountable to the history of this space not just women.’ All the artist have found different ways to kind of connect into that history.
“It’s everything for some artist saying, ‘well I’m a woman so this connects to me or women are the topic of my work, or women are not the topic of my work, but history and memory is the topic of my work or structure is the topic of my work.’ Everyone was able to find some type of a connection which was exciting,” she said.
Casas shared her thought’s on an amazing art painting, named ‘Como si nada,’ it covered an entire wall section.
She said, “It’s a mural that touches on a Chicana experienced in Los Angeles, the contemporary art world, but in an abstract way, with this particular piece I’m trying to touch subjects of what it means to be a woman and a mother in a traditional Mexican household, and falling in and out of Mexican customs.
At first glance you don’t see, I feel like it is a contemporary American art work, but if you looked at it, it also it speaks to a conflict with identity, falling in and out like being American and being Mexican or sometimes not being American and not being Mexican enough,” she said.
