Exhibit Dates: March 12 – June 4, 2022
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 19th | 4:00 – 6:30pm | Free. RSVP recommended.
Gallery Hours: Saturdays, 2-4pm through April 23rd (no gallery hours on April 9th)
For the health and safety of our community, Rhythmix requests that ALL guests to the K Gallery be fully vaccinated and remain masked during the opening reception and exhibit viewings. For Rhythmix complete COVID-19 Safety Guidelines, click here.
Art Changes the way we see the world, the way we understand ourselves and the way we learn about each other. Presented by the Alameda Education Foundation in partnership with the K Gallery at Rhythmix Cultural Works, Art Changes brings together 8 Bay Area artists into a group exhibition to share their diverse views of the world. Art Changes features paintings, photography, collage and paper weaving from Miguel Arzabe, Julie Atkinson, Derrick Bell, Julia LaChica, Claire Lau, Constance Moore, Joaquín Newman and Darius Riley.
Each of the Art Changes artists is featured in the 2021-22 Rhythmix PAL Program with an artist profile video and coordinating art activity offered free to elementary school students throughout Alameda County.
About Art Changes:
Challenged by the overwhelming need for creative student engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic, Art Changes is designed to help teachers provide visual art instruction and appreciation in their classrooms, whether virtual or in-person.
Art Changes presents video demonstrations by featured artists accompanied by a hands-on student project influenced by each artist’s work. The artists’ videos weave stories of inspiration and perspective that reflect the rich diversity of the Bay Area. Limiting the materials needed to engage in the interactive arts experiences promotes equity and accessibility. Art project videos are created and produced by Will Chang and J Hernandez.
Art Changes partners with the Rhythmix Performance, Art & Learning (PAL) program, to provide these visual art resources at no cost to students throughout Alameda County.
https://alamedaeducationfoundation.org/art-changes/
About Alameda Education Foundation:
A vital force in the community since 1982, AEF supports educational excellence in Alameda public schools by promoting educational opportunities, innovation, and equity for Alameda K-12 public school students. AEF is a strategic partner of the Alameda Unified School District whose programs support the academic, athletic, creative, and social growth for Alameda’s public school students. Programs include Equipped for Success (providing 1,500 fully stocked backpacks annually for Title 1 students), Front Line Mini Grants for teachers, Middle School Sports, Enrichment classes, mental health support for high schoolers, Art Across the Island, Art Changes and more. AEF believes that thriving public schools are essential for a strong community and a promising future.
https://alamedaeducationfoundation.org/
Art Changes Artists
Miguel Arzabe makes colorful and dynamic abstractions – weavings, paintings, videos. He starts by finding outdated beauty in paper ephemera from art shows, modernist paintings, discarded audio recordings. They are methodically analyzed, deconstructed, reverse-engineered. Drawing inspiration from the cultural techniques and motifs of his Andean heritage, Arzabe weaves the fragments together revealing uncanny intersections between form and content, the nostalgic and the hard-edged, failure and recuperation.
Image: Juntos, 92” x 28”, sewn acrylic on canvas with walnut rod, 2021, Miguel Arzabe.
After working in business and law, Julie Atkinson developed a passion for examining the human figure and emotions through art. Using colored pencils, collage, ink, and watercolor Atkinson explores the overlap of beauty, imagination and nature. The three pieces in this exhibit are part of a series which began with a reimagining of the story of Eve in the Garden of Eden, wondering how things be different if Eve didn’t eat the apple. In this work, Atkinson creates images that intertwine women and nature to contemplate and create a narrative around strength and confidence.
Image: Waiting in the Wind, mixed media, 2022, Julie Atkinson.
Derrick Bell is a fine artist, educator, entrepreneur and philanthropist. With degrees in studio art and art education, Bell’s works are inspired by his personal journey through life, music, nature and spiritual beliefs that transcend race and creed. His artistic renderings convey a deep sense of emotion, spirituality, dignity, history, strength and grace. Bell’s mission is to impact the world with his creative expressions. It is through this creative energy and passion that he seeks to motivate the viewer, arousing strong emotions that cut across ethnic, national and generational barriers.
Image: Dandelion: Bold, Beautiful & Black, 36”x72”, acrylics, 2020, Derrick Bell.
Julia LaChica is a Filipina-Japanese American Artist and Industrial Designer, born and raised in San Francisco, CA. She received her BFA in Industrial Design from the California College of the Arts. Her work includes painting, printmaking and mixed media assemblage. A consistent feature of her craft is the layering of paints, stories and cultures. Julia consciously works to create a sense of history by mark making, integrating found objects, distressing elements in order to reveal how corrosion, rust and wear accumulate on bodies and surfaces.
Image: Guardians, 11”x14”, acrylic on wood panel, 2020, Julia LaChica.
As a global citizen (having lived in France, Hong Kong, Massachusetts and San Francisco), Claire Lau continuously strives to increase the care that people have for nature, society, and each other through her art and activism. Claire insists on painting en plein air, completing all of her paintings on site from beginning to end. She finds plein air painting essential in today’s world, when people are seemingly connected online, but are becoming increasingly detached from nature and humanity. Her paintings focus on the relationship between nature and the urban environment.
Image: Mountain Fig V, 30”x40”, Oil on Canvas, 2014, Claire Lau.
Constance Moore is an artist and educator based in Oakland, CA. She shares her young students’ love of color and hopes to transmit their spirit and freshness into her work. Rooted in the power and meaning of storytelling, Constance’s art often borrows from and reimagines natural forms. She is the illustrator of Brown: The Many Shades of Love and the forthcoming Black: The Many Wonders of My World written by Nancy Johnson James available wherever books are sold.
Image: Brown and Black, book covers illustrations, 2020 & 2022, Constance Moore.
Joaquín Newman is an Oakland born painter, muralist, and community artist/educator who works and paints in Alameda. He creates paintings and experiences that seek to reconnect us to our natural world and the serenity that comes with a connection to our most creative selves. Joaquín currently runs an Arts as Health program for the County of Alameda.
Image: Spirit Flight (detail), 24”x36”, oil on canvas, 2020, Joaquín Alejandro Newman.
Darius Riley is a photographer and filmmaker from East Palo Alto, CA. He obtained a B.A. in Visual Arts from Bowdoin College in 2020. Darius is known for capturing Bay Area culture and life, but he has traveled the globe telling stories and connecting with people through his work. He filmed a documentary called Beton Je Krasny (Concrete is Beautiful) in Prague in 2019 and will be releasing another project, Black Daddy the Movie, in the summer of 2022.
Image: Sailor on Lake Atitlan, March 2019, Digital Photography, Darius Riley.
Main image (Clockwise from top left): Juntos, Miguel Arzabe (2021); Waiting in the Wind, Julie Atkinson (2022); Guardians, Julia LaChica; Sailor on Lake Atitlan, Darius Riley; Dandelion: Bold, Beautiful & Black, Derrick Bell, (2020); Spirit Flight (detail), Joaquín Newman (2020); Brown and Black (book cover illustrations), Constance Moore (2020 & 2022), Mountain Fig V, Claire Lau (2014).