Mt. San Jacinto College Art Gallery Hosts Fall Art Talks

Press release from MSJC:

Sept. 7, 2021

The Mt. San Jacinto College (MSJC) Art Gallery has launched a Fall 2021 series of virtual Art Talks and a new exhibit from artist Mick Gronek.

The online Art Talk series began Aug. 26 with Tulsa Kinney, but continues Thursday, Sept. 9, with artist Umar Rashid. Each talk runs from 1 to 2 p.m. every other Thursday. The schedule for the series, which is supported by the MSJC Foundation, is as follows:

• Sept. 9: Umar Rashid
• Sept. 23: Mark Dion
• Oct. 7: Jennifer Vanderpool
• Oct. 21: June Canedo de Souza, Odilia Romero and Janet Martinez
• Nov. 4: María Esther Fernández
• Nov. 18: Jennifer West
• Dec. 2: Conrad Ruiz

Additional information and Zoom links will be available about a week before each Art Talk at www.msjc.edu/artgallery.

The Art Gallery on the San Jacinto Campus also is presenting a special sculptural installation by Mick Gronek. "From the Ground Up" is a unique opportunity to explore Gronek’s early sculptural work from the 1990s. Gronek recently retired from MSJC, where he taught for more than 20 years. He is well-known for his paintings, and this exhibition is an in-depth look into his past sculptural work that looks as fresh as if it were made last week.

Gronek’s sculptures are discrete objects, but their forms allude to things outside themselves. His forms have an uncanniness where a sculpture with no relation to a television has a certain television-feel to it. An angled arch that lays directly on the floor looks as though it might be an excavated piece of an art deco building. His materials of tempered hardboard, clear pine, aluminum flashing, cast concrete add to the familiar but unplaceable quality of his work.

Although this exhibition features only his sculpture, you can see how these early works lead into his noteworthy painting style., which involves the application of patinas on various metals to provoke an alchemical transformation. He sets into motion a partially uncontrolled process of oxidation that will continue to react to its environment in an unfixed state. This activated surface is visually layered to create an ambiguity of spatial depth and meaning.

The exhibit runs through Oct. 7 in the art gallery, which is in Building 1400 on the San Jacinto Campus, 1499 N. State St. The gallery is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Masks are required indoors at MSJC.

For more information, please visit www.msjc.edu/artgallery or contact Art Professor John Knuth at Jknuth@msjc.edu.

This press release was produced by MSJC. The views expressed here are the author's own.