Gallery
Current

Guest Artist Adam Belt presents:
Between a Rock and a Place
Artists Reception: Saturday, September 30th, 2023
4:00pm - 7:00pm
“When I was five or six years old, in the late seventies and early eighties, I would lose myself in the pages of National Geographic, Time Life books and Jacques Cousteau’s Ocean World. The often grainy, overly saturated, and highly contrasted images revealed distant lands of ice and penguins, coral reefs teeming with bizarre sea life, and expansive deserts exuding timelessness. The relatively poor quality of the photography and printing process allowed for my imagination to fill in what the camera could not record. Further, the images of far-off lands hinted at an unexplored reality ready to be traveled.
About thirty years later while teaching at MiraCosta College, my design class was working on a project involving collage. Amongst the scattered magazines were older National Geographics from the seventies and eighties. I was enchanted and collected some of the images I found there. Over the period of a few years, I amassed binders full of images torn from magazines and stacks of coffee table books of landscape and travel photography. I sifted through them looking for images that resonated to me, a bizarre sky color, the certain artificial glow where mountains meet the horizon due to some bad printing process, etc. Looking through these pages was like visual dessert, a break from the constant problem solving of my artistic practice.
In 2015 my mom died of lung cancer, a month later my grandma passed from pneumonia in much the same fashion. I was emotionally and spiritually exhausted. Confounding this were the constant technical issues from my work as a contemporary artist. Needing a break, I decided to return to my native tongue, landscape painting. I first made oil paintings of images I collected, but rather than a strict photo realistic portrayal, I rendered the images as I would a traditional landscape while keeping the idiosyncratic qualities of the photographs. Wanting to ground the paintings with a more concrete process, I paired the representational works alongside paintings created with the paint used in the representational paintings. The pairs consist of a representational landscape painting and a painting created by the paint of its companion. For me, the resulting paintings occupy a space between traditional landscape painting, fantasy and the imagined or idea of a place.”
Works on exhibit
September 25th – November 10th
by appointment only
215 S. Pacific Street, Suite 104
San Marcos, CA 92078

Guest Artist GAIL Roberts presents:
Seeing
Artists Reception: Saturday, August 5th, 2023
4:00pm - 7:00pm
Nothing is the Same (1998-2005)
Nothing is the Same is a series of paintings repeating the same view of Palomar Mountain and Pauma Valley located in Southern California. The changes were sometimes dramatic, but more often the daily pace of the mountain and valley was subtle and unassuming. As each moment is altered by both natural and artificial forces, reality is not certainty. Rather, it is a fleeting, momentary abstraction of the perception of space.
Nests (2014)
The nests are accumulations of natural elements interwoven to form cradles, architectural feats in their strength and endurance. They evoke references to birth and innocence, but when abandoned they have qualities of death and decay – containers of decomposing organisms revealing heightened contradictions of attraction and repulsion.
Color Field (2017-2022)
Color Field includes paintings of flowers from the garden surrounding Roberts’ studio. Each blossom, whether large or small, widely popular or undervalued, drought-tolerant or water guzzlers, indigenous or alien, invasive or fragile, edible or toxic, is given an equal role. The paintings illustrate the significance of protecting nature’s biodiversity as the climate crisis threatens the future health and survival of our planet.
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
– Henry David Thoreau
Works on exhibit
August 1st – September 1st
by appointment only
215 S. Pacific Street, Suite 104
San Marcos, CA 92078

Guest curator Kathryn Kanjo, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego presents:
Becky Guttin
Drawings on Paper
Artists Reception: Saturday, June 17th, 2023
4:00pm - 7:00pm
Drawings on Paper celebrates the long, extensive artistic journey of internationally renowned artist, Becky Guttin. Well-versed in a multitude of media, this exhibit takes a look at some of her earlier works on paper, providing insight to some of the ideas being explored throughout her career.
Guttin’s work examines the relationship between the natural world and the materials she utilizes. Earthy tones blend together to create swaying palm trees arching over thick pastel marks of bright, cycling gusts of wind. Later works would indicate a change in direction, with a near-monochromatic scheme of tall plant stalks and towering buildings being interrupted by splashes of yellow, undertones of blue, or outlines of red. Her most recent work on display shows a balanced harmony between the amorphous organic shapes from the past and the simple palette composed of the primary colors from her more recent explorations.
An examination into the visual imagery of Guttin’s art shows themes consistent with nature and organic objects and how they relate back to her personal experiences. Her expressive linework and intuitive usage of color are indicative to a distinct style curated over a lifetime of creativity and passion.
Works on exhibit June 17 – July 28
by appointment
215 S. Pacific Street, Suite 104
San Marcos, CA 92078


Featured Artists:
Maite Agahnia • Manuelita Brown • Bronle Crosby • Susan Darnall • Theresa Vandenberg Donche • Julia CR Gray • Lori Mitchell • Gillian Moss • Alison Haley Paul • Chris Schwimmer • Gail Titus • Brenda York
Visiting Artist Collective
Time For Women Artists Presents:
Synchronicity
May 15 - June 9, 2023
“Twelve visions; twelve styles; twelve imaginations; twelve souls. But there is always meaningful convergence when our work comes together in one place.
The group came together from our need for community and by—well… synchronicity: human souls attract people, places, and events that help us to grow, develop, make meaning, and evolve. Finding people who support and connect brings wonder and delight, the unexpected, and the sense of being looked after. Despite our divergent media, choices, palettes, and ideas, the women of TWA are linked. Our work reflects that link.
This group promotes in each of us a sense of openness, courage, and gratitude. Things and people show up as we need them, and we are in the right place at the right time: Time for Women Artists.
In this exhibition, we explore synchronicity as revelation of the interconnectedness of all things and the purpose behind seemingly random meetings and events. Through our diverse art making, we challenge you to stop, look, and consider the world anew; come along on our journey of exploration and contemplation as we attempt to understand and use the power of synchronicity.” – TWA
SIP Art Studio
215 S Pacific St, San Marcos, CA 92078
"Cornered"
by Tom Driscoll
Saturday, January 21st at 4pm
4pm-7pm
“Tom Driscoll’s recent sculptural works activate architectural space by exploiting the juncture of walls, floors and ceilings. The resulting corners become prime loci for the placement of cast concrete, geometrically organic forms that enlist and activate the entire gallery space as both foil and collaborator. Related hanging, pendulum pieces when swung arc back and forth against the white walls leaving elegant tracings of their movement. The normal gallery experience of static objects centered on walls is thereby completely subverted by Driscoll in an exuberant and profound way.”
– Hugh M. Davies (Guest Curator)
We hope you’ll come join us in celebrating the remarkable work of Tom Driscoll!
SIP Art Studio
215 S Pacific St, San Marcos, CA 92078

HIGH DESERT CARNIVAL
Curator Anna Stump
High Desert Carnival is a visual art extravaganza, presented by SIP Art Space in San Marcos, California, curated by Anna Stump.
The High Desert, defined as the neighborhood of Joshua Tree National Park and the Morongo Basin, has affected the participating artists with a sense of zany celebration and fierce independence. The starkness of the desert environment, with its huge skies, spiky plants and animals, exposed geology and extreme climate, seems to have pushed these artists to the brink. The joyous, surreal, and primal find expression in their work.
Artist Reception: July 9, 4pm – 7pm
Exhibition Dates: July 9 – August 20, 2022
Past

Seeing
August 1st – September 1st, 2023

Becky Guttin
June 17 – July 28

Synchronicity
May 15 – June 9, 2023


Listen With Your Eyes
Reception featuring Steve Gibson
May 14 – June 24, 2022

Ohana
Curated by Alex Couwenberg
March 19 – April 29, 2022

Herd Immunity
Curated by Hugh M. Davies
Director Emeritus, MCASD
January 22

Carbon Neutral
Curated by Alex Decosta
Gallery Director, Hyde Art Gallery
Sept. 25

Postmodern Portraiture
Curated by G. James Daichendt and David Carlson
July 24 – Sept. 10