Activist continues to bring protests and face paint to CSULB

Dave Wrathall sitting with his supplies and paintings

Long Beach graduate and political activist Dave Wrathall has developed a weekly routine of creating a painting a day from Mondays through Thursdays as a form of protest, along with free face painting. He can be found planted with his art supplies and canvases around the field of the south campus.


Along with painting brightly colored promotion for love and peace, Wrathall also offers free face painting. “Skin is the best canvas,” he joked.

Wrathall began his protests at Long Beach in Oct 5, 2006, when he gathered his friends and held signs in front and across the University Bookstore in opposition of the US military’s abuse against prisoners.  For the rest of the year, every Wednesday, he continued to protest the Bush Administration.

However, by 2008, he decided to take a different approach, one with less negativity. Since then, he has painted “Visionary Abstraction” to promote peace, not war. “It’s not a Republican or Democratic thing,” Wrathall said, “It’s about truth-seeking through art.”

Art in and outside the exhibits

By Nathan Olsen

The gallery courtyard between FA2 and FA1 was bustling today, as exhibitions were held while preparations were made or the annual college of the arts student mixer “Art Intersection.”From 5 to 8 p.m. the court yard came to life with metal-smithing, illustration and ceramic demonstrations, musical performances and more. As scheduled, the department galleries are open from 12 to 5 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, 12 to 7 p.m. on Wednesdays.

Jennifer Cotterill transformed the entire Marylin Werby gallery into a museum of illustrations, video, and sculptures, exploring the concept of procrastination. “On Work Avoidance” was divided into three separate themes: distraction replacement, and evasion, each of which was narrated charmingly in an audio tour.

The west Gatov Gallery, Harry Diaz presents his show “Let’s talk,” which illustrates bold faces and environments in Serigraphy as tribute to Mayan textile and hieroglyphs. Diaz, born in Guatemala illustrates his own confusion of cultural identity. “I hope to evoke a fading memory of my cultural heritage,” he wrote.

To the east of the gallery, “Drawstring” by Nancy Chiu presents a contrast to it’s neighbor, presenting soft graphite illustrations of line intricacies and human-faced creatures. Inspired by her observations of human relationships and nature, Chiu creates images of intimacy.

Next door in the Merlino gallery, doughnuts and jewelry are one in the same for Tammy Young Eun Kim in her BFA metal show. Kim asks through her appetizing jewelry the significance of food and love.

Across in the Dutzi Gallery, Nathan Olsen takes trip dawn nostalgia lane in his exhibit "Make Believe." Inspired by his childhood memories of TV, movies, comics and cereal boxes, Olsen digitally illustrates his adult response to such images as alien invaders, robots and Power Rangers.

Noise and bustling at the galleries

From "Catalyic"

The student art galleries between building FO2 and FO3 take a contrasting approach this weeks as one side remains quiet and subtle, while the other tacks a more interactive approach. Gallery hours are from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. from Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday, from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m., is the final day for the exhibits. Exhibits are closed Thursday for Veterans day.

TVs in the dark of "Of and if at is"

The sounds of music and audio tracks can be heard outside of the Gatov galleries. “Catalytic: Communities Networks Participation” is not only a gallery, but a series of social projects encouraging inter-connectivity between the audience and the world. A forum will be held Wednesday from 7 p. m. to 8 p. m. with a round table discussion of the exhibit with the curators and some artists. The gallery Catalytic was organized by an AH 497 class with Professor Karen Kleinfelder.

A photo from "Complex Projections"

Next door in the Merlino gallery, Colin Lindsay’s exhibit “Of and if at is” also engages viewers in an interactive experience. Television sets are stacked ominously at the center of the black room, projecting images of contrasting rolling waves and bright explosions as an audio track guides the listener into a deep state of relaxation. “I think I was going for a bastardized Zen moment,” Lindsay jokes.

Quieter than the other the galleries, Joanne Gonzalez’s “Complex Projections,” located in the Dutzi gallery, presents a series of simple  photographs thumb-tacked to the walls with white, paper borders to simulate the look of a Polaroid. “The Polaroid 600 is a format that has gained nostalgic attention after its recent discontinuation,” said Gonzalez

From "Out if Line"

In the Werby gallery, Lizbeth Navarro presents a deep appreciation for lines and their relation to nature in her ceramics show “Out of Line.” “A line is a trace of a constantly moving world.” she said, lines are the building block of everything. The gallery is presented as an insulation piece with line art and triangle embedded into the ceramics.

Collaborative projects pack the student art galleries

"Shadows on the Cave Wall" by Katie Shanks

Ending tomorrow, this week’s Art Department galleries showcased two collaborations between artists for a Drawing and Painting Senior Show in the Max L. Gatov galleries and Printmaking Group Show in the Dutzi gallery. Also in the Merlino and Werby galleries are Adriana Weeden with metals and Emily Quest with paintings. Gallery hours Thurday are from 12 p. m. to 5 p. m.

Assigned as required senior show for gradutaion in the Gatov galleries, “Different brush Strokes” features the work of Danny Blackwell, Lorena Garcia, Katie Shanks, Gaby Uceda, Xian Yu Zhou, Andrew Cortes, Lauryn Logan, Ashley Springer and Javier Yamakawa. Each artists proveded their own artist statement describing their insperations and individual styles, ranging from portraits, to urban landcsapes to a paper recreations of a cave. Blackwell joked about his humerous self portraits, "I'm not fond of making fun of other people, so I might as well make fun of myself."

Also in a collaboration of artists, the printmaking group show “Ink 666” presented grim and surreal artistry remenisant of the exhibition's opening day, Halloween, through calligraphy, lithography, and various other forms of prints. Functioning as a promotion for print-related art, information in printmaking classes was set by the entryway of the Dutzi gallery.

Inspired by her childhood fear and wonder for the ocean, Adriana Weeden based her entire solo show “Audy’s Oddities” on capturing underwater life through metal recreations of coral and fish. Jewelry was encased in round fishbowls. Her fascination with fish stems from her father warning her as a child on a summer vacation that the fish would eat her toes as they dangle in the water, she said.

Emily Quest's MFA Painting show in the Werby gallery was closed Wednsday for unknown reasons.

UMA panel discusses Los Angeles abstract art

“Painterly,” a panel discussion of Los Angeles based artists Iva Gueorguieva, Steve Roden, and Ali Smith was held today at the University Art Museum at 5 p. m. discussing abstract paintings. 

Hosted by CSULB Art Department faculty members Linda Day, Tom Krumpak, and Marie Thibeault, the panel discussed abstract art, its manifestation on the east and west coast of the United States and its future in the 21^st century. 

The event was inspired by the exhibition “Perpetual Motion: Michael Goldberg” hosted also in the UMA until Dec. 12.

Born in Bulgaria, panelist Iva Gueorguieva received her MFA at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. Her latest exhibit was in Los Angles at Angles Gallery. Visual and sound artist Steve Roden’s current work can been seen at the Pasadena’s Center for the Arts and Pomona College Museum of Art’s exhibition, “when words become forms.”  The final panelist Ali Smith earned her MFA here at CSULB.