Visionaries: Contemporary Art from Santa Barbara’s Private Collections
Bloom Projects: Adrian Esparza

Opening: SAT. MAY. 22, 7-9 PM
On View: MAY. 22 – JUL. 18, 2010

Visionaries: Contemporary Art from Santa Barbara’s Private Collections
This exhibition will celebrate Santa Barbara’s world-class private contemporary art collections, specifically highlighting ones which include cutting-edge work including paintings, prints, drawings, photography, and sculpture by leading figures in the contemporary art world. Widely recognized as a center of arts and culture, leisure, and natural beauty, Santa Barbara also boasts a population of savvy art aficionados who travel, collect, and support contemporary art. This exhibition provides a rare glimpse into the private treasures in our midst.

This exhibition has been made possible in part by the generous support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Special thanks to Wayne McCall and Associates, Santa Barbara, CA.

Bloom Projects: Adrian Esparza

El Paso-based Adrian Esparza garners much of his source material and artistic inspiration from his borderland experience. Through a series of deconstructed serapes, reassembled ceramic sculptures, and paintings on bed sheets, the artist explores his daily encounter with this political divide and perpetually challenges generally accepted boundaries and hierarchies.

This exhibition has been made possible in part by the generous support of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Special thanks to Brush & Associates, Santa Barbara, CA and Wayne McCall and Associates, Santa Barbara, CA

Press Release - Coming Soon!

Justine Kurland, Circus Scene, C-print
20x16, Private Collection

Adrian Esparza, One and the Same, 2005
Serape, plastic trim, and nails, 60 x 144 in.

Call For Entries '09-'10: Graham Bury, Alejandro Casazi, Madelaine Frezza, Laura Krifka, Christine Morla, and Shane Tolbert
Bloom Projects: Adrian Esparza

On View: AUG. 7 – OCT. 3, 2010

Call For Entries ‘09-‘10: Graham Bury, Alejandro Casazi, Madelaine Frezza, Laura Krifka, Christine Morla, and Shane Tolbert
Call For Entries is an annual juried exhibition that is open to all visual artists living and/or working within Santa Barbara, Ventura, and San Luis Obispo counties. Selected  artists from the local community will present new work in relation to the alternative arts context of CAF.

Artists were selected by a panel of jurors made up of: Anne Ellegood, Senior Curator, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Michael Barton Miller, Artist and Studio Art Professor, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA; Yasmine Mohseni, Curator and Writer, Los Angeles, CA; and Adrian Rivas, Co-founder, g727, Los Angeles, CA.

Bloom Projects: Keith Puccinelli
Santa Barbara-based Keith Puccinelli uses an irreverent quick wit, modest materials, and tableaux to broach the conflict between the preciousness of life and man’s disregard for life during times of war, to create a kind of carnival of sorrow. The strong juxtaposition of materials and a passion for wordplay often brings a sense of humor to glaze or emphasize the serious or tragic presented in the work.

Shane Tolbert, I Found the F, 2009
Acrylic on canvas on panel, 12 x 9 in.

Christine Morla, Refractions, 2008
Candy wrapper, paper, and acrylic on panel, 30 x 36 in.

Parallax: Peter Rostovsky and Paul Winstanley

ON VIEW FROM OCT. 23 – DEC. 19, 2010

Parallax: Peter Rostovsky and Paul Winstanley
This exhibition of paintings by established artist Paul Winstanley and younger mid-career artist Peter Rostovsky resists the structure of an ordinary solo show, instead offering a visual conversation between artists, or parallax. This idea resounds when artists unified by the same common project come upon similar obstacles but also parallel solutions. These are the moments of not only unique discovery, but also of more comprehensive analysis of the object of study.  In presenting this model, CAF peels back the veneer of institutional authority by allowing the audience an intimate view behind the artist’s mind, studio practice, and discursive research.

Michelle O’Marah
Off-site: The Home Show, Revisited

ON VIEW FROM MAR. 5 – MAY 1, 2011

Michelle O’Marah
Los Angeles-based artist Michelle O’Marah explores the effects of popular culture, deconstructing in particular Hollywood genre conventions with both reverence and criticality. Her commitment to involving the arts community as an active participant has always been an underlying element in her work. This exhibition will present a series of video portraits of artists, musicians, and friends, loosely inspired by Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests (1964-66).  The exhibition will include patterned backdrops or wallpapers for each “character.”  The artist will also present a series of still photographs, so that the complete installation ultimately acts as a community portrait. 

Off-site: The Home Show, Revisited
The reference to the community in Michelle O’Marah’s solo exhibition provides a bridge to a public exhibition component co-curated by the artist and Miki Garcia, Executive Director.  Reprising two of CAF’s most significant exhibitions, Home Show (1988) and Home Show 2 (1996), the two will invite 10 Los Angeles-based artists to reconsider the societal and cultural notion of “home,” by creating site-specific installations in residences throughout Santa Barbara. The homes will be open to the public on weekends throughout the run of the exhibition.  Visitors to CAF will be given a map and instructions for the tour.

Artist's Artist: Exploring the Legacy of Lucas Samaras, curated by Marc Swanson
Bloom Projects: Sarah Cain

ON VIEW FROM MAY 21 – JUL. 17, 2011

Artist's Artist: Exploring the Legacy of Lucas Samaras
Curated by Marc Swanson
Widely considered an artist’s artist, Lucas Samaras’s groundbreaking sculptures and photographs continue to influence new generations of artists.  Among those motivated by Samaras is New York-based artist Marc Swanson who will curate a group exhibition for CAF that considers Samaras’ major stylistic breakthroughs and present works by contemporary artists who have been inspired by them.

Bloom Projects: Sarah Cain
Los Angeles-based artist Sarah Cain takes painting outside of its traditional canon and goes beyond the frame while using craft materials such as beads, ribbon, feathers and other materials. Using these manmade and natural materials creates a perfect tension between abstract, geometric logic played against a rush of fluid, freeform lines. Although Cain makes a share of work in traditional formats (paint on canvas, paint on paper), she also has a long-standing interest in upending expectations about form, which she explores in her installation work.