Gail Weissman

Gail Weissman in conjunction with John F. Kennedy University's Arts & Consciousness Department announces her MFA graduate show entitled Half-light: at Dusk and Dawn, an artistic exploration of the concepts of "truth and beauty". The work exhibited is considered a contemporary extension of the 19th century European and American Romantic landscape traditions. Aspects of the painting language inherent in those traditions can be thought of as extending to the Abstract Expressionist School and can be seen in Weissman's large acrylic paintings where color indicates both light and form. Her imagery exists at the interface of mimesis and abstraction; illusion and allusion. They are at the same time emotional and philosophical and are concerned with the paralleling of natural phenomena and human consciousness.

Along with her large scale paintings, Weissman is exhibiting life size soft sculpture dolls which invoke the Archetypal world. The dolls are made from recycled furniture parts and objects found on the roads of Marin County in California giving them the presence of Gothic phantoms. In one example entitled "The Shadow," a 6' tall all black figure, the robe is covered with the road detritus suggesting that our shadow is made up of what we leave behind, what we choose not to keep.

Balancing Perspectives: East Influences in Contemporary Art explores the artwork of contemporary artists from diverse ethnic, social and geographical background who have, through their artwork, embraced key philosophical influences and expressive styles traditionally associated with the art of East Asia (China, Japan and Korea). In some cases the links are clear - an artist working in visual styles that are directly related to East Asian traditions as well as expressive of European and American experiences, materials and critical assumptions.

The exhibition offers a counter-point to recent exhibitions of ethnically Asian artists who are working in decidedly European genres and who have rejected traditional East Asian philosophical structure in favor of those more in favor among contemporary critics and collectors both Asian and Non-Asian.

This is not an exhibition of traditional paintings using the classical techniques of ink, bamboo brush and rice paper. Instead it is intended to be a survey of multi-ethnic and stylistically diverse art, which is interested in expanding the acknowledgement accorded Asian artists working in a contemporary art world still dominated by Europe and America.

Heather Johnson

What boundaries separate human beings from the natural world? The exhibition human / nature explores the permeability of nature in the human experience. Johnson works with the tension between romanticizing the natural world's complexity and beauty and her anxiety about our ultimate lack of control.

The exhibition features printmaking, painting, drawing, and a porcelain installation. Johnson's penchant for fragile and vulnerable materials echoes her underlying apprehension about the human interface with the natural landscape. The exhibit combines minimalism with atmospheric spaces, delicate lines, and intricate details Anthropomorphism, unease, beauty, and humor are designed to seduce and surprise the viewer.

The creative act is, by its nature, a process of movement; inner psychic movement which becomes transformative both for the artist and for the work of art. Murakami's exhibition "MAYURA - Floating in Timelessness," is the documentation and presentation of her psyche's journey through the dynamics of the creative process. The exhibition interweaves the installation of illuminated silk screens, video images and body movement. In the installation, the images in their changing forms trace her inner psychic movement, revealing a symbolic process of "becoming." Viewers are invited to witness in this dance of the artist's soul, the movement of not only the physical body but also the psyche.

Underlying this exhibition is Murakami's belief that everything in the universe, from a particle of sand to a living being, is constantly moving between dualities, while following natural laws. Life is an ongoing process of learning to balance these dualities, such as, life/death, psyche/body, Yin/Yang. For Murakami, the truth of life is not a question of certainty (static) but ambiguity (moving/changing). When we accept this truth and live in the present moment, we open ourselves to eternity and the bliss of being truly alive. Murakami's multi dimensional installation, Mayura - Floating in Timelessness, embodies this truth by generating a mysterious environment in which the complementary yet elemental dualities of light/dark, movement/stillness, waking/dreaming can meet in harmony as they offer a self-portrait of the artist's psychic life through the altered reality of her imagination.

Kim Campisano, Kathy Derosas, Tara Ford

Sifting Between the Opposites is a multi-media, interdisciplinary art installation that transforms space and focuses on the tension of sorting through time and internal vs. external boundaries. One aspect of the exhibition features projected images that penetrate columns containing materials symbolizing transformation.

Sifting Between the Opposites, the artists' second collaboration, follows a year after their exhibition, Impermanent Utterance: Time, Thought, and Matter. The 2007 show received positive comments and reviews by local artists and educators, including JFK University Arts & Consciousness Department Chair Michael Grady (http://artsandconsciousness.blogspot.com)

Kimberley Campisano is a San Francisco Bay Area artist and educator working in a variety of media. She has studied and worked in Arizona, California, Italy, Mexico, and Cuba. She is currently pursuing her Master's Degree in Fine Art at John F. Kennedy University and earned her BFA at Arizona State University. She has exhibited her work at Via Larga in Florence, Italy, the San Francisco Art Institute, Southern Exposure Gallery, and the Italo-American Museum, among other venues, and has earned awards in shows at The San Francisco Women's Art Gallery in 2001 and 2002.

Kathleen de Rosas is currently pursuing her Master's Degree in Fine Art at John F. Kennedy University. She has exhibited her work in several venues in the Bay Area and is a recent recipient of the "Arts on Fire Awards Exhibition" from the 2008 Arts on Fire XII at the Sanchez Art Center in Pacifica, CA. She will participate in a two person show in 2009 in the East Wing Gallery at the Sanchez Art Center's Arts on Fire XIII 2009.

Tara Maria Ford is primarily a photographer and a writer, although she also works in painting, installation, and performance. She is currently pursuing her Master's Degree in Fine Art at John F. Kennedy University. She has exhibited her work in several venues in Northern California including the Museum of Contemporary Art at the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in 2004. Ms. Ford is interested in pursuing the art of writing about art and becoming a professor of art at local colleges and universities.

Heidi Forssell

The Right Kind of Girl is an exhibition of humorous and poignant work about the artist's own struggle with female identity. Forssell uses everything from a ball gown to teddy bears, but not in conventional ways. Here, the teddy bears have teeth and the ball gown is deep fried.

This unusual show is a diverse collection of art designed to seduce, repulse, and fascinate. A deft agent provocateur, Forssell asks the viewer to examine the absurdity not only in the work, but in the culture it comes from. The show is playful but with a pensive undertone that leaves the viewer double guessing their own reactions and assumptions.

Forssell, a young single female, points out that there are few mentors for girls to look to in forming their own identity. "I feel that many women have been forced to cobble together their identities from what our peers, parents, religion, and the media told us. How do we want to be defined? How are we supposed to handle our sexuality? This work is my way of trying to sort it all out".

The Right Kind of Girl includes sculpture, video, and drawings. Many of the works are animated or interactive, such as the life size nude 3D drawing (3D glasses provided), or the inflatable torso which reaches out to the viewer before quickly deflating. Also included are video interviews with women sharing advice and anecdotes from their own experiences about growing up female in an honest, intimate portrayal of adolescence from a distance.

Although the subject matter is loaded, Forssell insists the work is an invitation rather than a proclamation. "My work doesn't want to start a fight or try to give you answers," she maintains, "It just wants to start a conversation."

• Nicole Min Yee Chan MA
• Marlene Renee Asha Cleckley MA
• Amie Clute MFA
• Kim Criswell MA
• Todd Jones Donahue a.k.a. Spark*! MA
• Heidi Forssell MFA
• Mark Lindsay MFA
• Tomoko Murakami MA
• Lisa Rasmussen MFA
• Rosa Maria Valdez MFA
• Jon Steven Walters MFA
• Gail Weissman MFA

Amie Clute

An artist who works in multiple media, Amie Clute focuses on psychological tensions held by the figure. The figures stand alone, imposing a sense of seclusion, but the works together offer a meandering thread that allows the viewer to find his own relationships to history and unconscious states of feeling.

Having grown up in a show business family, Clute traces memory resonances into a theatre of painting, drawing, sculpture and photographic imaging. She has studied art history, drawing from traditions of portraiture, Expressionism, photography, and more experimental approaches to the figure. Clute says about her work: "I'm compelled to add the element of my touch, a sense of motion, and the sensuality of materials." While informing her art with images culled from all periods of art history, she works to bring figurative imagery into contemporary relevance. Among her inspirations are Hans Holbein the Younger, Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, Hieronymus Bosch, Lucian Freud, Louise Bourgeois, Susan Hauptman, Alice Neel and Robert Gober.

Jon Stevens Walters
MFA Candidate

Jon Steven Walters creates emotional and thought provoking work, using three basic colors black, white and red while introducing added touches of color. His works are at times raw, edgy, insightful and thought provoking, allowing the viewer to create their own story or interpretation. His works are on a grand scale, yet provocative and intimate.

Jon Steven Walters work is inspired from early life events that have been lingering in the dark corners of his memory. With the alchemical palette of black, white and red, his passion for painting has ignited a transformation of his own artistic and personal journey onto canvas. Not only painting his truth, but what is true. There should be something for every viewer to relate to in his most compelling and personal work over the last several years.

AUM (OM) ~ The Primordial Healing Art
Transforming Consciousness and Celebrating Community through Sound

Robert "Otto" Thorsen uses bright colored cartoon-like paintings, crude child-like sculptures, sound, video and installation to explore themes of love, life and war. These are contemplations on the world by a thoughtful adult as seen through the eyes of a child. Fighter jets, tanks and M-16's are the dominant visual motif but one is not sure who is the friend and who is the enemy. The works read as visual puzzles which have no simple solution. These are war games being played without a defined end. Perhaps the game is the end in itself.

Pat Allen, Fariba Bogzaran, Kaleo Ching & Elise Dirlam Ching, Seth Eisen, Mary Daniel Hobson, Lisa Kokin, Peter London, Fred Martin, Jeremy Morgan, Sharon Siskin, Karen Sjoholm, Mary Webster

Rosa Maria Valdez

The Arts and Consciousness Gallery of John F. Kennedy University presents Rosa M. Valdez's exhibition, mujeres de carne y hueso / women of flesh and blood. Valdez, daughter of Mexican immigrants, artist, and community activist, works in the tense space between cultural expectations of women in her community and the possible creation of a new feminine identity. The exhibition explores women's roles, the stereotypical objectification of and violence against women, and the tension between external representations and real women's realities. The exhibit will feature photography, video installation, garments, and an installation involving 665 image transfers that commemorate the victims of feminicide in Latin America.

Valdez's work was most recently included in the Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana's (MACLA) Chicana/o Biennal "an exhibition and public forum conceived to take an inventory of emergent energy, critical edge, and aesthetic interventions within contemporary Chicano art."

Her work pierces the (artificial) divide between the personal and the political and invites viewers to participate in creating alternative spaces for women to define who they are.

For more information visit: www.rosamvaldez.blogspot.com

LISA RASMUSSEN

The John F Kennedy Arts and Consciousness Gallery in Berkeley, California will present the paintings, photography, and installation of Lisa Rasmussen's MFA graduate exhibition ---- Caol ait (thin places). The exhibition will open October 23nd through November 15th.

Caol 'ait is the ancient Celtic term for "thin places", were the veil between the physical world and the spiritual world merges. This is not solely a Celtic phenomenon, but is alive in all contemporary and ancient indigenous cultures around the world. These liminal places--sensory thresholds between differing states—can be a medium for accessing the personal unknown. This show presents an opportunity for the public to engage in a multi sensory experience of aroma, light, and sound, illuminating Rasmussen's fascination and exploration of the interflow between soul and matter and between time and eternity.

The exhibition will also include The Hands of Creation, Rasmussen's tender portraits of the children of Lincoln Child Center, a children's mental health agency in Oakland for vulnerable and emotionally troubled children. Her portraits will be coupled with the extraordinary transformative art works of her students at LCC. Their artwork will also be for sale via silent auction benefiting Lincoln Child Centers Transformative Art program and the students participating.