What we're up to

OCTOBER – Visit to EXHIBIT/208 to View the Works of Kim Arthun and the Group Show

EXHIBIT/208 is proud to announce the October show featuring works by artist, gallerist, and CAS Board Member Kim Arthun. Kim began his career as a printmaker, but evolved into a constructivist and collage artist.

Kim, along with Dwayne Maxwell and Russell Hamilton founded EXHIBIT/208 in 1999. The gallery is home to notable and internationally known Albuquerque artists, who have built an inspiring and supportive fine art community, working in divergent styles, drawing on a pool of talent that is second to none.

WEBSITES: https://exhibit208.com/

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NOVEMBER – Studio Visits with Ophelia Cornet and Michael Ottersen

Visit to Ophelia Cornet’s Studio

Ophelia Cornet was born in Belgium to a family of artists and designers. After moving to the United States, she pursued photography and painting at Rutgers University. Ophelia then made her home in New Mexico, where she served as Head Instructor of the Albuquerque Museum for 20 years. She now paints full time in her adobe studio, where she combines her lifelong passion for photography and oil painting into a distinctive multi-step technique she calls Fotura.

From Ophelia’s website: “My work is Feminist, spiritual, and surreal. I create in response to a world that is excessively masculine, accelerated, and materialistic. The art comes forth from my desire for a sense of counter-balance, to remember that we can reconnect with ourselves, each other, and the natural world.

The work also explores themes of a witness consciousness. This Eastern philosophy describes a calm state of awareness in which one doesn’t identify themselves with passing thoughts and feelings. My pieces often include symbolic hand positions called Mudras and symmetrically reflected figures to invoke this concept.

The mode of art-making also lends itself to this sense of alchemy and fluidity, allowing the subconscious to flow into surreal compositions. I call the style Fotura (fotografía y pintura). It is a distinctive technique blending my lifelong passion for original photography and oil painting. The multi-step process involves posing and photographing the model; printing, cutting, assembling images; and applying layers of plaster and paint to actualize the vision.”

WEBSITE: www.opheliacornet.com

Visit to Michael Ottersen’s Studio

Michael Ottersen lives and works in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was born in Massapequa, Long Island in 1956 and grew up mostly in Norwalk, CT. Michael received a BFA in painting from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA and Rome, Italy. After graduating he lived and worked in New York City, Seattle, WA and in various locations in New Mexico. He consistently maintained a painting studio wherever he was and has supported himself in magazine production, textile production, gardening, free lance illustration, and since 1997, as a painting and drawing instructor. Mr. Ottersen finds that the unknown element of his work is what keeps him obsessed and the ensuing contradictions a catalyst for new directions.

Applying a refined multi-layered technique, Michael Ottersen creates minimalist abstract oil paintings and works on paper that appear simplistic but are exquisitely revelatory. His painting is labor-intensive and unapologetic, requiring the viewer to pause and reflect, and eventually witness an odd transformation of what is being seen. A complex world of texture and color slowly bubbles to the surface of perception. And although the work may seem serious, this perception is rebuked by hilarious, odd titles that seem to perfectly fit each artwork. Ottersen also draws and this work, each of which takes two weeks to complete, pulls the viewer into a unique world of geometric intricacy.

WEBSITE: www.michaelottersen.com

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DECEMBER – Visit to Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910-1945: Masterworks from the Neue National galerie, Berlin at the Albuquerque Museum

Visit to Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910-1945 with Albuquerque Museum Director, Andrew Connors

Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910-1945: Masterworks from the Neue National galerie, Berlin traces the German experience in modern art from the early twentieth century avant-gardes resisting the conservative imperial government, through the great artistic diversity of the democratic Weimar Republic, to the recreations from the artistic community against the National Socialist (Nazi) dictatorship. Some artists adapted to the regime in power, some fled the country, and others boldly resisted, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

This exhibition tells the story of powerful works of art, many of which were on display in the 1937 exhibition Degenerate Art where the National Socialists condemned modern art and ideas, or were created in response to that exhibition. Paintings and sculptures by major German artists including Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, George Grosz, Max Beckmann, Hannah Höch, and Paul Klee are juxtaposed with other experimental European artists of the period including Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Giorgio de Chirico, and Salvador Dalí. The exhibition is organized by the Neue Nationalgalerie-SMB and is accompanied by a catalog. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

WEBSITE: Modern Art and Politics in Germany 1910–1945 — City of Albuquerque