Ben Quinn and Daniel Arthur Mendoza - Anchors and Portals

Opening Reception: Saturday, April 7th, 6 -9 pm

Exhibition Dates: April 7th - April 28th, 2018

Anchors and portals: a binary built on transitory purposes–one pole acting as a tether to our terrestrial limitations, the other promising an escape from our present confines. The works of Oakland-based artists Daniel Arthur Mendoza and Ben Quinn operate along similar lines, with the flopping gravitas-stricken sculptures of Mendoza contrasting the concentric flowing lines of watercolor which beckon the viewer within Ben Quinn’s current suite of “portal” paintings.

Daniel Mendoza’s sculptures are inherently resourceful, comprised of studio detritus, found fabrics and cement, yet the embedded emotional affect of the gestures struck belie their resourceful nature. They lean, hunch and drape about, tethered to the ground by cement bases that serve both as supports and foundations. The forms and materials often give Mendoza’s works a domestic feel, as if a couch cushion has just become animated and is found struggling under its own autonomy and weighted physicality. Other organic forms by the artist wrestle with the confines of a cage mounted on the wall, or are bound by a cable and lay submissively at the feet of the viewer, with titles such as “Bound Form (Damn... I Really Tried)” or “Hunched Form (Damn... Played Myself...)” reinforcing the hapless sentiment carried by these odd sculptural forms.

While Mendoza’s forms through proxy hint at the limitations of the human body, Ben Quinn’s colorful paintings aim at just the opposite. Anyone who has followed Quinn’s development as an artist has witnessed a deep interest in the supernatural, in conspiracy theories and dark areas of knowledge. Instead of explicating these interests through imagery, Quinn has taken to constructing his latest series of paintings through radiating lines of saturation, creating meditative color fields that whisk the viewer in and transport one's mind to a different plane. The artist’s application of thin layers of watercolor create a luminous quality in the work as drips from previous layers intermingle–earthy and muted chakras which emanate from the interior of the canvas. Quinn’s portals hint at evolution, at growth and spiritual betterment, and the calming effect of these works cannot be overstated as we find ourselves entranced before them, tracing successive rings of color in an exercise of self-removal.