We have a bustling summer school program in the art department with students working til late August. It’s a rigorous schedule – deep immersion into the disciplines of Drawing, Painting, Art in Education, and Ceramics – student Victoria Axworthy described it as “…really intense – if you take a summer art course there are less projects but more time time to work on them”.

“Summer school helps you get ahead” said Doug Drugan, pictured as he measures for a portrait of classmate Ben Bradley, in the mirror.

 There’s a stark simplicity to the materials Duncan Simcoe uses to create his works, yet a depth to his images that is simultaneously challenging and moving. He’s concerned with suburban living and the challenge of searching for the divine in the course of our lives – the distance between us and God. The works are religious, but contemporary, and they work effectively to encourage our individual searches for the mystic Christ, always distant, but always personal.

In addition to his suburban works Duncan has made drawings in paint about the battle between the descendants of Abraham, using unexpected renderings of boxers, oil gushers, pigs and shopping carts as jarring images to bring his observation that the conflict is mythical in proportion. Perhaps surprisingly for such controversial material the works don’t take a side in the contemporary struggle between Palestinians and Jews, they simply observe that this is an epic that has been happening for centuries.

The Kwan Fong Gallery exhibit of Duncan Simcoe’s works is now open! Visit the gallery and see what one of Southern California’s most interesting religious artists can do.

The Black Drawings are the result of a long-running conversation about the way large stories or myths play upon and intervene in contemporary experience. In the past, he has particularly focused on the generative myth of Abraham and Ishmael, while more recent works have responded to the Palestinian Intifada. His first explorations of this controversial subject matter included studying the works of Goya, and making and collecting images of boxers fighting.

Duncan has a wonderful website where you can get a preview of his work at http://www.duncansimcoeart.com/

3.oo pm Saturday afternoon 26th April. Kwan Fong Gallery.

Works upstairs by Krista.

Bret Bays loads in his sculpture.

Works line the stairway. 

CLU student Karli Watland has been quietly breaking ground as a successful artist. She told me that she has now sold two of her recent series of paintings. 

Karli and her colleague Bret Bays have begun the run of solo shows by our senior students by installing their excellent exhibit into Overton Hall, so come and see why her work is selling. The two artists have worked hard to make their exhibit a great success and I’m very impressed. Their show includes paintings, photography, prints and drawings. Closes 24th March.

Overton Hall is opposite the Humanities building near the flagpoles on Memorial Drive. 

Michael