The Paolo Mejia Fine Arts and Design with studio-FAB invites everyone to attend our group art show entitled "Inked" that will be held at our annex facility in Oakland this March through April. The group show will be exhibiting a collection of conceptual ink work on unconventional art substrates. We are attempting to explore the various usage of ink and how it is applied and interpreted onto different materials. Come join us, meet and greet the artist, and see a fantastic show.
Art Show: March 15 - April 4
Opening: March 17 (thur), 3 -5pm
Closing: April 1 (fri), 6 - 9pm "Oakland First Friday"
Guest Artists:
+ Ann Simms
+ Crystal Komoroff
+ Mel Vera Cruz
+ Paolo C. Mejia
+ Suchitra Sharma
location:
studio-FAB (annex)
2525 Telegraph Ave.
(Across from 25th street)
Oakland, Ca 94607
Artists' Bios:
Ann Simms - When Ann Simms was a child, she believed the grass could feel and the stones could hear. Ann believed that things are mostly not as they seem and that the ghosts of the past walked among us and influenced today.Not much has changed. Ann is intrigued by the ambiguity of meaning and reality. One minute we think we “have it” for certain but this certainty is never for long.Simms want to create images that invite multiple meanings. She is interested in offering possibilites, not in directing the viewer, and in the layering of experience and meaning, in juxtapositions, and in discovering the more that is there, beyond conscious intent to what is unseen but there nonetheless..
Ashwin Narayanan - is an artist/drawer that grew up in India and who currently resides in Mid-penninsula, California. He uses specialized black ink to draw his illustrations on paper through which he channels myriad and diverse influences from the majestic and enduring stone shrines of his native South India, to the mystifying and elusive vocabulary of hidden dimensions and virtual particles in today’s Science. His art seeks to explore curiosities, pushes boundaries and reinterprets convention. Ashwin’s drawings are contained but not constrained to conventional themes.
Crystal Kamoroff - is a San Francisco based artist who has exhibited work in galleries and various art venues both nationally and throughout the Bay Area. She received her BFA from San Jose State University and MFA from Bowling Green State University. Crystal is an active studio artist with a background in ceramics and sculpture, and has a passion for installation and site-specific art. She is constantly researching information and techniques that inform and her work as well as seeking out artist communities that facilitate creative dialogues and collaborations.
Crystal is motivated by reinvention and transformation of a physical and spiritual nature. Her artwork is a record documenting the act of connecting. In her process, she creates visual relationships and links that construct a desirable whole from fragmented parts. These connections simultaneously defy and employ logic in playful ways. Her intention is to visually represent the mind at work; to render uninterrupted flow; a myriad of impressions; multifarious thoughts and feelings; without regard to narrative sequence; and to place value on experience over deductive reasoning.
Mel Vera Cruz - was born in 1964 in Manila, Philippines. He had two major migrations. His first migration was from the province of Quezon to the city of Manila, and his second migration was from Manila to the San Francisco Bay Area. These two major migrations had a profound effect on him.
As an effect of his emigration, he experienced discrimination and psychological displacement. Discrimination and psychological displacement were generally common experiences for emigrants. Mel had an ideal experience as a child because he spent it in the country where nature was his playground, but at the same time was a victim of discrimination early in life because of his provincial/rural background. However, his experiences fueled his desire to create. Mel’s attempt to exorcise his demons affected his art making process. This attempt of exorcism had a positive reaction from a negative situation. For Mel, this was the only way to take the baggage out of his system.
Just as he was beginning to adjust to the cosmopolitan life of Manila, he migrated to the Bay Area in California where he was labeled ‘fresh off the boat’ or FOB. This was another experience that displaced him further mentally and psychologically. However, Mel had one advantage on his side and that was using the esoteric power of art as a tool to confront his disadvantages. Not all his experiences were bad, and this reflects on his art making process and artworks. In Mel’s works, you can feel the spontaneity and joy in his creations. It is like a release of synergy that came from his overall vibe and experience.
Mel’s artworks illuminate in a chaotic but fun way. He has been interested in utilizing available materials or found objects because he likes to be self-sufficient, not only physically and mentally, but also spiritually. His surroundings definitely impacts his process and art making. Like a chemist, he can transform materials from his surroundings and then make them into pieces of art, because he believes it is integrated with his life and not separate or detached. Mel Vera Cruz, overall, believes in the freedom and independence in art making.
“You cannot reach your full creative potential when you’re subjected to those protocols“, as Mel Vera Cruz comments.
Paolo C. Mejia - is a Bay Area native. He grew up without the interest in art. This all changed when he attended college. His interest and passion for art developed and expanded. Paolo’s inspiration and passion for art initially was brought out by a great mentor and friend, Barbara Bouchard and in the latter, Dickson Schneider, who continues to fill gaps to complete his love and devotion to and of art. With their encouragements and positive reinforcements Paolo continues to pursue his love for the arts. He decided to pursue art making as his focus because it is life fulfilling and what makes him happy.
Paolo is an experimenting artist who loves to paint and draw, make three-dimensional works, and create installations. He explores the realms of 2D and 3D art because it gives him a different feel and perspective in seeing things visually and conceptually. Two-dimensional works allow Paolo to see different perspective of things that are ineffable and intangible, and three-dimensional works gives Paolo the opportunity to handle art in tactile ways that goes beyond the two-dimensional form. Incorporating these dimensions enable Paolo to feel and understand the materials, processes, tactility and limitations of art. These are what make him interested about art and what he does.
Paolo’s oeuvre deals with the formality of art and the metaphysical state that deals withgestalt or automatism of the subconscious. He applies the formalism of art as he makes arbitrary subconscious choices, or gestalt, in his artistic processes, with a bit of chance. In Paolo’s art processes, ideas and inspirations are conceived from the abundance of forms, shapes and patterns from nature and materials. He also uses man made mechanisms and objects as his initial inspirations. Sometimes, innate sensibility is used to make art. All-in-all, these are the inspirational factors in Paolo’s art making.
As an experimenting artist, Paolo continues to explore things new, ephemeral and traditional. These are what drive Paolo to make art.
Suchitra Sharma - creates mix media artwork & installations. Her work challenges the binaries human mind construct between its physical & spiritual self. She attempt to present a surreal reality of human emotions. By going with the flow of her unconscious process of spilling ink & starting a random doodle, Suchitra wants her viewers to be in the moment & meditate on the work. She currently lives in Oakland & work out of her Studio at Art Explosion, San Francisco.