Visionary Art of Northern California
(events » arts)
Saturday, May 10, 2008 - 5:00 PM
You are invited!
Reception May 10, 5-7:30 pm
Show Dates May 10- September 7 2008
Northern California Visionary Art: A Contemporary Legacy
In the late 1960s the San Francisco Bay Area became the most important focal point for a new art movement. Amidst a background of Vietnam War protests, campus riots, a new Hippie idealistic counterculture, far eastern spiritual influences, underground comics, and psychedelic music and poster art, Visionary Art materialized. Centered around certain teachers and students at the San Francisco Art Institute a nucleus of artists developed who were influenced by Surrealism, Jungian universal archetypes, personal dream awareness, a synthesis of ancient art symbols, and non-western religious philosophies. It was a time of mind altering drug experimentation and free love. Massive numbers of youth were fleeing their middle class upbringing to seek other paths of consciousness and utopian dreams. Concepts of Mother Earth ecology and a movement to move back to the land were developing. The first television generation was seeking new realities. The Visionary artists expressed these new generation visions in their precisely painted, altered reality images.
The new art form caught on quickly. Soon several of the artists were reproducing their paintings as posters and cards for the counterculture market. Other artists across the country and around the world surfaced in the new vision quest. Today, a search of Visionary Art on the Internet will produce an exhaustive amount of information and artist listings. And yet, despite a number of important museum exhibitions and publications over the past forty years, the movement is today mostly ignored by the contemporary art mainstream. However, some art collectors and the counterculture have continued to support these artists through purchases of paintings along with poster and card images. Indeed, most of the artists in the exhibition have their own websites to market their reproductions and originals to a whole new audience.
This exhibition, Northern California Visionary Art: A Contemporary Legacy, at the Grace Hudson Museum in Ukiah, germinated from the large number of visionary artists who are located in rural utopian Northern California. The show opens with an evening reception on May 10 and runs through September 7, 2008. The selection of works follows the traditions of personal dreamscape, utopian landscape, spiritual awakening, and apocalyptic visions as originally manifested in California Visionary Art images of the late 1960s and 1970s. Many of the founding visionary painters are represented, some with works that span the history of the movement. Other exhibiting artists include those who have immigrated here from afar or are younger painters representing a second visionary generation. So much visionary imagery was uncovered regionally, it is clear that Visionary Art remains an important creative force. The seventeen artists represented in the show include: Thomas Akawie, Andrew Annenberg, Don Bear, Bonnie Bisbee, Krista Lynn Brown, Josie Grant, Mark Henson, Nick Hyde, Bill Martin, Paul Nicholson, Gene Avery North, Maire Palme, Paul Pratchenko, Janet Rayner, Mark Roland, Doug Volz, and John Wagenet. Marvin Schenck, Grace Hudson Museum Curator, and Doug Volz, one of the participating artists, organized the exhibition. A panel discussion, “What is Visionary Art?” featuring several of the artists is planned. A public tour of the exhibition with the curator is also being scheduled. Call (707) 467-2836 for information.
gracehudsonmuseum.org
Reception May 10, 5-7:30 pm
Show Dates May 10- September 7 2008
Northern California Visionary Art: A Contemporary Legacy
In the late 1960s the San Francisco Bay Area became the most important focal point for a new art movement. Amidst a background of Vietnam War protests, campus riots, a new Hippie idealistic counterculture, far eastern spiritual influences, underground comics, and psychedelic music and poster art, Visionary Art materialized. Centered around certain teachers and students at the San Francisco Art Institute a nucleus of artists developed who were influenced by Surrealism, Jungian universal archetypes, personal dream awareness, a synthesis of ancient art symbols, and non-western religious philosophies. It was a time of mind altering drug experimentation and free love. Massive numbers of youth were fleeing their middle class upbringing to seek other paths of consciousness and utopian dreams. Concepts of Mother Earth ecology and a movement to move back to the land were developing. The first television generation was seeking new realities. The Visionary artists expressed these new generation visions in their precisely painted, altered reality images.
The new art form caught on quickly. Soon several of the artists were reproducing their paintings as posters and cards for the counterculture market. Other artists across the country and around the world surfaced in the new vision quest. Today, a search of Visionary Art on the Internet will produce an exhaustive amount of information and artist listings. And yet, despite a number of important museum exhibitions and publications over the past forty years, the movement is today mostly ignored by the contemporary art mainstream. However, some art collectors and the counterculture have continued to support these artists through purchases of paintings along with poster and card images. Indeed, most of the artists in the exhibition have their own websites to market their reproductions and originals to a whole new audience.
This exhibition, Northern California Visionary Art: A Contemporary Legacy, at the Grace Hudson Museum in Ukiah, germinated from the large number of visionary artists who are located in rural utopian Northern California. The show opens with an evening reception on May 10 and runs through September 7, 2008. The selection of works follows the traditions of personal dreamscape, utopian landscape, spiritual awakening, and apocalyptic visions as originally manifested in California Visionary Art images of the late 1960s and 1970s. Many of the founding visionary painters are represented, some with works that span the history of the movement. Other exhibiting artists include those who have immigrated here from afar or are younger painters representing a second visionary generation. So much visionary imagery was uncovered regionally, it is clear that Visionary Art remains an important creative force. The seventeen artists represented in the show include: Thomas Akawie, Andrew Annenberg, Don Bear, Bonnie Bisbee, Krista Lynn Brown, Josie Grant, Mark Henson, Nick Hyde, Bill Martin, Paul Nicholson, Gene Avery North, Maire Palme, Paul Pratchenko, Janet Rayner, Mark Roland, Doug Volz, and John Wagenet. Marvin Schenck, Grace Hudson Museum Curator, and Doug Volz, one of the participating artists, organized the exhibition. A panel discussion, “What is Visionary Art?” featuring several of the artists is planned. A public tour of the exhibition with the curator is also being scheduled. Call (707) 467-2836 for information.
gracehudsonmuseum.org
