By Daily Press staff
A new Santa Monica College art exhibit will explore interconnectivity and other themes.
“Entwined,” an exhibit featuring the works of Sharon Kagan and Vanessa Madrid will be at SMC from Jan. 30 through Feb. 9.
Kagan and Madrid, both adjunct art professors at SMC, have created a show that travels between heft and weightlessness, tension and suspension. The artists — working in sculpture, drawing, digital photography, fabric wall pieces, installation and painting — plumb texture and a reduced palette. Their works speak equally to a minimal aesthetic and a feminine vernacular. The artists are engaged in constructing a lexicon of inter-connectivity that employs process and a different approach to materials.
Kagan, who has drawn from knitting and crochet for her current work, is the daughter of Holocaust survivors and is interested in the consequences of epic events. She is a Brody Arts Fund fellowship award recipient and a California arts council artist-in-residence. Her work has been exhibited widely, including the Patricia Corrreia Gallery in Santa Monica and Gallery 825 in L.A.
Founder and director of the creativity center in Santa Monica, she earned her degrees from UCLA and Otis Art Institute, and served as an apprentice artist to Judy Chicago, contributing to her famous installation, “The Dinner Party.”
Madrid received her bachelor’s degree in applied design and her master of fine arts from Claremont Graduate University. Her paintings have been shown at the Rhode Island School of Design, Art Center in Pasadena and various galleries throughout the Los Angeles area. Installation sites include Rome, London and Santorini, Greece.
Madrid has created for the exhibit a cycle of works depicting the transformation of experience to memory and transcendence.
Gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information, call (310) 434-3434. The show will be held in the SMC photography gallery, located on the second floor of Drescher Hall, 1900 Pico Blvd.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 13, 2006. Read the original PDF.