May 22 exhibits

Bakersfield Museum of Art’s annual Visual Arts Small Works Festival has a new and smaller look to it this year.

For the first time, all artists will work in a 5 x5 inch format using the theme “Fragments.” The idea behind the theme is to encourage artists to think in new ways and focus on painting or producing elements of a larger piece of artwork. The small format of 5 x 5 inches forces the artist to use minimal space to make a powerful statement.

“This is the new way of looking at things and for all artists to work on exactly the same size piece. It also is a way for artists to look at things more specifically and more tightly,” said Emily Falke, curator.

The exhibit will open May 22 with an opening reception from 6 – 8 p.m. The gala evening will feature a much larger number of small works than ever before ranging from paintings, photographs, watercolors and pastels to mixed media and sculpture.

Artists throughout California were invited to submit artwork into this juried exhibition. Juror David Furman, Professor Emeritus of the Claremont Colleges will choose a cohesive body of work to fill the Cunningham Gallery. All works will be for sale for $200 or less and 40 percent of the sales is a taxable donation.

The Small Works exhibit will open at the same time as Melt My Art: Encaustic Expressions, Dirk Hagner: Woodcuts and Project DaDa – A Community Wide Art Project.

Opening night will feature a no-host bar and hors d’oeuvres. Admission is free to members, $10 non-members and $5 for students. A raffle with art related prizes will compliment the Visual Arts Small Works exhibit.

Melt my Art: Encaustic Expressions, features a unique artform with a very distinguished look.

Encaustic, a beeswax based paint, is an ancient medium, dating back to the fifth century B.C. The Greeks used wax and resin to weatherproof their ships and pigmenting the wax was the way in which the warships were colorfully decorated. In this way, the artform was born. It was also used in Egypt and Europe for decorative and artistic pieces. Many of the white statues still in existence in Greece were likely colorfully decorated with encaustic paints at one time.

The modern movement in encaustic art has its origin in the nineteenth century, particularly in Germany. However, many of the artists of the modern movement were in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s. Through Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” art programs, some encaustic pieces of art were produced with funding from the U.S. government. Through this program, the encaustic medium found its place in the modern art. Contemporary artists are still attracted to this versatile and unique medium.

“We have shown single encaustic pieces before but never had such a complex an exhibit like this,” said Assistant Curator Nicole Saint-John. “The variety of works here will completely show the array of encaustic techniques used in contemporary art - abstract, portraits, still life pieces and mixed media.”

The Museum presents this high quality encaustic exhibition in the Ablin Gallery. It includes the diverse works of eight contemporary artists: Julia Heatherwick from Bakersfield, Mary Black, Matt Duffin, Eric Hesse, Judith Kindler, Thea Schrack, Carolyn Springer, and Tina Vietmeier.

Also opening May 22 are works by printmaker Dirk Hagner, who studied at the Folkwang School of Fine Arts in Germany and who is a master of the woodcut technique. Hagner carves his large images into a block of wood and like a stamp, he creates large and highly interesting prints with fine lines. Some of Hagner’s woodcuts are as large as 58 x 30 inches and the large medium demonstrates the extraordinary artisanship of Hagner.

“It is a very detailed and precise artform and his work has a flair that almost has an Asian influence to it as well,” said Saint-John.

Hagner follows the tradition of fellow German artists Albrecht Dürer (1471 – 1528), Hans Holbein The Younger (1497 - 15 43) and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880 -1938). “Freedom of creativity” is the theme of this exhibit and the woodcuts feature highly creative people such as writers, actors, musicians and scientists. Some of the subjects include German writer Bertolt Brecht; German actor Klaus Kinski; German artist Egon Schiele and U.S. actor Vincent Price.