For Immediate Release,
9/10/07
Delta Center for the Arts / LH Horton Jr. Gallery Presents a Monica Van den Dool exhibit, “Specters”
Specters: Ceramic Narrative Tableaux
Exhibition: October 4 – November 1, 2007
Reception: October 4th, 5–7pm
Gallery Exhibition Hours
Tuesday: 11:00 am – 4:00 pm
Wednesday: 11:00 am – 6:30 pm
Thursday: 11:00 am – 6:30 pm
Friday: 11:00 am – 1:00 pm
October 6th: 11:00 am – 3:00 pm
(Stockton, CA) The LH Horton Jr. Gallery is the visual arts venue of the Delta Center for the Arts at San Joaquin Delta College. The Gallery is a premier exhibition space located in the city of Stockton. The primary mission of the Gallery is to promote quality and culturally diverse artwork in support of our students’ education and the community at large.
The second show of the 2007-08 Exhibition Season is the work of Monica Van den Dool, a local artist residing in Oakland, California. With an MFA in sculpture from Montana State University, Van den Dool has an extensive art exhibition history throughout California and Montana. Awards for her work include recognition by the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts and Richmond Art Center. She has taught ceramics and lectured at several universities and colleges, and is currently a lecturer at San Jose State University.
Van den Dool’s work consists of hand-built, ceramic narrative tableaux and wall pieces. Her work deals with the human inability to comprehend or express our own mortality and connection to the natural world. The “Ghost” series represents this struggle with a childish solution: figures simply dress themselves up like ghosts with sheets over their heads. Van den Dool says,
“Their efforts are as futile as my own attempts to sculpt something amorphous and immaterial from a material as heavy and permanent as clay.”
In the recent “Monkey” series, sinister primates make the case for coming to terms with our own baser instincts, while simultaneously aspiring for some higher plane of existence. Part hero and part villain, engaged in often ambiguous and always suspicious undertakings, the monkeys describe the limits of evolution and magnify our own struggles to define our humanity.
The LH Horton Jr. Gallery located on the ground floor of Shima Center on the campus of San Joaquin Delta College, at 5151 Pacific Avenue, Stockton, California. Gallery admission is free and open to the public, and is wheelchair accessible. Group Tours are welcome, and Gallery talks can be arranged. Recommended parking is available in the Shima lots for a nominal fee.
Lurking Monkeys from “Specters” Exhibit
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