SWELL
Exhibition Schedule: April 21, 2023 to July 2, 2023
Opening Reception: April 21, 2023 from 5pm-7pm
Lisa Bartleson
Susanne Melanie Berry
Casper Brindle
Dino Capaldi
Fritz Chesnut
Ned Evans
Julie Goldstein
Chip Herwegh
Dennis Jarvis
Eric Johnson
Beth Lee
David Lloyd
Shana Mabari
Zack Missioreck
Ben Soto
C.R. Stecyk III
Alex Weinstein
Katherine Young
The Manhattan Beach Art Center (MBAC) is pleased to announce SWELL. In this dual exhibition, Manhattan Beach Art Center (MBAC) and Gallery 208, join forces to present artwork taking inspiration from surfing and surf culture. SWELL features work from 18 artists who begin their creative journey at the ocean and dive deep into exploration of materials, techniques, messages, and inspiration. While SWELL focuses on less obvious surfing inspiration, such as the materiality of resin or the dichotomy between male and female surfers, Hot Batch at Gallery 208, presents a more straight forward point of view.
In his forward to SWELL, participating artist Alex Weinstein writes:
“It is hard to overstate the impact of the Pacific Ocean on the culture of California. Surfers know the feeling best: immersion into overwhelming, tempestuous grandeur. For artists in their studios; the act is similar. Bringing an artwork to completion is no less an encounter; often its fruition is inevitably the account of a struggle between maker and medium for something greater, ineffable, sublime.
Since the 1960’s, surfing has brought millions of people into the ocean; thanks in large part to an industry born here in the South Bay. In emotional terms, what happens in the sea is at once deeply personal and often, curiously universal.
The artists in this exhibition all share a lineage with the broader matrix of estuaries born of the Pacific. In the hands of several, fiberglass, urethane foam, and polyester resin – the very DNA of surfing – is deconstructed and recast. Within this broader context, some are working in a renewed investigation of Light and Space – a decade’s old response to the dour austerity of New York-based Minimalism. Here and now, sleek manufacturing and sunset-tones yield a type of chemical optimism that is distinctly Californian. Others have brought the causal materiality of the sea itself: its primeval erosive/generative forces into their output. There are works here of great gestural mass owing to the heroic sweep and indomitable attitude of the ocean. For other artists in this exhibition, their narratives present more conceptually, perhaps even quietly, sharing larger interior discoveries made among the waves.”
SWELL opens on April 21st at 5pm with a reception from 5pm to 7pm at the Manhattan Beach Art Center (1560 Manhattan Beach Boulevard, Manhattan Beach). Hot Batch, opening on the same evening, will hold its reception from 7pm to 10pm at Gallery 208 (208 Manhattan Beach Boulevard, Manhattan Beach).
