Jocelyn Arceo
Arts Editor
Self-taught artist Gary Brewer, one of four displayed in the “Secret Garden” exhibit, spoke about his connection to nature through painting and art on Thursday in the Harris Gallery to a crowd of about 20 students, staff and faculty members.
“To depict an object carefully, to really render and capture that life force and the shadows, the transparency, the translucence, the reflection of something coming through and passing through it; to replicate a pattern in matter that instigates a consciousness in that image is a form of magic,” Brewer said. “I love painting things.”
After being an abstract painter for about 15 years, Brewer said he had lost his enthusiasm for the art. He described it as a burden, claiming it was no longer fun and was not making him happy. Having grown up in Lancaster, Brewer found his niche in nature as he would spend his entire childhood hiking, backpacking and camping throughout California, he said.
It was this background that led his wife to suggest he start including nature within his art, considering it was already something he had loved, Brewer explained. For the the past 20 years, Brewer has used nature as his subject matter within his art.
“It slowly but surely became this very precise thing that I got into,” Brewer said. “Which was unexpected, but once I found my way in, I was happy.”
One of his pieces that caught a lot of attention was very dark, depicting a sort of silver tendril dancing up towards the top of the piece where orchids can be seen. However, the orchids resemble more alien-like figures than they do the flower, emitting a very “Alien Vs. Predator” air to the piece. There were soft, fluid like shapes throughout the background looking similar to that of smoke coming from the end of a cigarette, almost as though the vibrant blue and soft white were dancing hand in hand.
When speaking on the piece, Brewer told a story of the time he went to a flower shop in Los Angeles with his wife, to which he saw orchids that he described as looking both insectoid and extraterrestrial.
“Orchids have this fleshiness to them, it’s very much like skin,” Brewer said. “They are the most anthropomorphic flower, and they have an eroticism to them, so I started using orchids.”
Shyonta Glothon, junior theater and psychology major, described the piece as though she were looking deep under the sea.
“The coral reef is dying right now so you have this black that’s like the dying coral reef, and the flowers are like jellyfish,” Glothon said. “I love the 3D-feel and how it’s coming out toward you, like you’re a part of the art. You flow with it, that’s why I really like this one.”
Although Glothon may have seen the deep underwater ocean in Brewer’s piece, Israel Valdez, junior studio art and Spanish major, described the art in a more fictional, almost spookier, way.
“It reminds me of ‘Stranger Things,’” Valdez said. “The flower reminds me of the Demagorgon, and the roots look like veins. It also kind of reminds me of Alice in Wonderland, the flowers that used to speak, with smoke or smog around it.”
Along with Brewer’s work, the exhibit also displays the work of Rochelle Botello, Jason David and Rema Ghoulom.
“Secret Garden” uses the work of these four artists to present a colorful environment that provides allusions to both real and imagined space through the relationship between physical objects and illusionistic images.
Dion Johnson, curator, told the audience that Botello compared her sculptures to circulatory systems within the human body, something he referenced when it came time to display her sculptures in relation to Brewer’s paintings, as well as throughout the work of David and Ghoulom.
“It’s the connectivity of your work, dealing with nature and how you make and find different elements all about this sort of life force you often reference,” Johnson said to Brewer. “It seemed like a cool idea to have you two together.”
The exhibit will run through Oct. 24.
The Harris Gallery is open Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., or by appointment.
Jocelyn Arceo can be reached at jocelyn.arceo@laverne.edu.
