Cheerful chatter and live music filled the Brea Civic Center plaza as Brea Gallery celebrated the opening ceremony of their 41st annual “Made in California” juried art exhibition on Saturday.
The exhibition featured over 90 artists from all over California, ranging in different artistic mediums including traditional oil paintings, sculptures and mixed media pieces.
Gallery Director Katie Chidester explained how the gallery gets around 5,000 submissions for the exhibit annually. Their selected jury plays a role in not only narrowing down the submissions, but helping choose a vision for the exhibition.
“Essentially what happens is the jurors make their selections from the submissions and they get to actually pick the show, which is fantastic,” Chidester said. “What that does for us, the gallery, is it brings a different perspective in every year… We have their vision for what the show, what they feel like California art is.”
The exhibition’s jurors and gallery staff also take into consideration what is happening in Californian society when curating the exhibition.
“We’re looking at current trends, like what is it that a lot of people are talking about right now in this current climate? What are people gravitating towards?” said Gallery Coordinator Kennelyn Deloach.
Because the jury changes yearly, the exhibition’s overall theme changes as well. This year, the selected pieces carried overall themes of identity and social justice.
Artist Angel Lesnikowski talks about her submission, a mixed media painting titled “Othered Existence.” The piece uses imagery of a young girl in mourning to explore the theme of being othered and dehumanized because of one’s identity, specifically Arab identity — and highlights current conflicts in Palestine, Iran and Lebanon.
“The idea of the piece came from a (Edward) Said theory essay I read about the idea of ‘othering,’ ‘othering’ referring to someone not being part of the group, so you shun them from the group,” Lesnikowski said. “It was calling out how orientalism, which is now a bad term, was created in order to other the orient, other the Asian or the Middle East cultures.”
Artist Adam Singer’s oil painting “Big Feelings” was another of the featured pieces in the exhibition focusing on the theme of identity. The artwork portrayed a surrealist visual representation of how aging and mortality are in conflict with the commodity of youth in a modern society.
“I would say that it’s my attempt to capture the general vibe of living in Los Angeles these days and reaching middle age and feeling that dread of mortality, along with the intensity of the city,” Singer said about his painting. “Also this kind of feeling of trying to express ourselves and these very intense feelings through these narrow little channels of expression.”
The exhibit also highlights one solo show. This year’s installation, titled “This must be the place,” was put on by multidisciplinary artist Lorena Molina. The installation featured photography, woven installations and videography.
Molina’s solo show is inspired by her Salvadoran heritage, the immigrant experience and her own personal definition of home.
While each individual piece holds a different meaning and importance to their respective artist, the exhibit is connected through how it showcases Californian identity and what modern citizens hold dearest.
“It’s exciting to me because it is such a snapshot of what’s going on in our state right now artistically,” Chidester said. “I think it speaks a lot to what people are responding to culturally, current events-wise, politically, socially and that’s why I love it.”
“Made in California”will run until June 28. The Brea Gallery is open Wednesday through Sunday from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.