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Monterey Museum of Art Monterey, CA

Monterey Museum of Art

Monterey Museum of Art-Pacific Street
559 Pacific Street,
Monterey, CA 93940
831.372.5477
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e-mail: info@montereyart.org


www.montereyart.org

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Seeking Eden: James Fitzgerald in Monterey
Through April 23, 2022

Born in Boston, James Fitzgerald’s parents and grandparents recognized his talent early. They set up a studio space for him when he was a boy and even let him skip Mass to draw and paint, a notable allowance for a South Boston Irish Catholic family. Always drawn to the sea, in the early 1920s Fitzgerald took a break from his art studies at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, to crew fishing ships and freighters off the coasts of North America. These experiences gave his paintings of seafaring life a certain truth – and something more – that he described in this way, “Simple realism isn’t enough…pure painting is concerned with timelessness.”

During a trip along the West Coast in 1928, Fitzgerald’s travels brought him to Monterey, California where he settled for the next fourteen years, establishing a studio and becoming a central member of the Cannery Row scene that included John Steinbeck, Ed Ricketts, Bruce Ariss, and Martha Graham.

MMA Executive Director Corey Madden says, “We are thrilled to host this exhibition in partnership with the Monhegan Museum of Art & History. Looking at the paintings he did here in the age of the Great Depression, it is not surprising to see how many of his subjects were ordinary working people. His work captures a depth of human experience and an exquisite natural beauty through the lens of hard times. Fitzgerald’s Monterey work seems particularly inspiring and essential now as we pass through our own challenging days. The exhibition is also a powerful way for us to animate one of our core commitments to presenting the art of California’s past.”

About the Monhegan Museum of Art & History and the James Fitzgerald Legacy
The mission of the Monhegan Museum of Art & History is to preserve and display objects of historical and cultural significance to Monhegan Island, Maine, and in so doing, to provide a source of information and fascination about Monhegan for the benefit of the residents of the island and all other interested persons. Operating within the framework of the Monhegan Museum, the James Fitzgerald Legacy seeks to preserve, protect, and promote the artistry of James Fitzgerald.

Image: James Fitzgerald (1899-1971), The Daisy, n.d., watercolor on paper, 15.25 x 21 in. (38.735 x 53.34 cm). Monterey Museum of Art. Gift of Anne M. Hubert, 1997.201. Image © James Fitzgerald Legacy.

Courage Within: Women Without Shelter
Through April 23, 2022

Courage Within: Women Without Shelter is the culmination of three years of work including bookarts, drawing, painting, and printmaking workshops designed specifically for local women experiencing homelessness and led by four artists: Dora Lisa Rosenbaum, Denese Sanders, Amanda Salm, and Melissa Smedley. The exhibition will include new conceptual works by these artists as well as installations of work created by the participants in the workshops.

“The goal of this partnership and the impetus behind the exhibition is to help make visible the lives of women who courageously face unspeakable challenges every day. MMA is committed to being a place of belonging for our entire community, so we are especially honored to be part of this important artistic collaboration and proud to present this powerful and remarkable work,” says MMA Executive Director, Corey Madden.

About the Artists
The work of Amanda Salm is textile-based. Her work in the exhibit is concerned with the national subject of housing. She says, “It became apparent to me while working on the project that there are many regional, state and national obstacles to providing reasonable shelter for homeless and vulnerable populations.”

Dora Lisa Rosenbaum’s work includes installation, sculpture, printmaking, and drawing. She focuses on the immense physical labor at the core of women without shelter’s daily experience and existence. She says, “My work explores the difficulty these women face in maintaining their identities and sense of self, and the central role belongings, their things, play in reinforcing these.”

Melissa Smedley’s art for the exhibition at MMA consists of sculptural installation, video performance, and spoken words that seek to make visible these women’s stories and struggles. “My responses are inspired by spending time with the women and while learning more about the array of cultural forces that conspire to make unaccompanied women in our community so vulnerable and unsupported.”

Denese Sanders’ artwork focuses on the women themselves through portraiture. The work aims to reveal the courage and individuality of each woman. This work addresses the complex nature of being looked at and judged in juxtaposition with the recurring pain of feeling invisible and forgotten. She says, “By nature, we all need to be seen and heard in the world, yet for women living with homelessness, identity exposure is too great a risk to their safety and pride, while chronic invisibility crushes their emotional wellbeing.”

The Collaborators

  1. Critical Ground is an artist collective comprised of four mid-career artists who gather bimonthly to critique and support the development of one another’s artwork.

  2. The Fund for Homeless Women (FHW) was established in 2012 to help create and sustain innovative services for unsheltered women on the Monterey Peninsula.

  3. Open Ground Studios is an artist collective and community studio; a place where art is the vehicle for learning, practice and connection.
Currents + FLUX: Stefani Esta
Through March 26, 2022

Currents is a gallery space dedicated to recognizing the work of emerging and evolving California artists. Featuring a different artist every two months, Currents presents a range of media, styles, and genres. Visit MMA Pacific Street to view rotating exhibits celebrating the creative diversity of our community.

Stefani Esta in Currents + FLUX
Artist Statement

“My goal is to transform and stretch the boundaries of my materials. I am interested in what lies beneath the surface. In this work, what is removed is as innately important as what remains. By gouging, grinding, and carving my way down through layers of stone, steel, and paint, by applying and reapplying chemicals, by adding and removing again and again, I am able to reveal what wants to be discovered.

“This body of work explores power consumption and energy usage. Blinded by years of short-sighted thinking and the misguided convenience of dependence on fossil fuels, we are damaging our precious Earth. Climate change and the warming Earth is here. We must change. Imagining into the Future is at the heart of my creative process. By contemplating the question of how untapped power can be mobilized, my piece Diamonds in the Sky was made manifest. These works are the shapes between, and reflections of, light on steel. Or in other words, they are joules of energy, units of energy, reflection of the soul.

“As contemporary stewards of Mother Earth, it is paramount that each of us dare to imagine. And get busy saving our beautiful blue planet.”

Visit the artist’s website.

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