Two New Exhibitions Coming To Laguna Art Museum

Laguna Art Museum will present two new exhibitions this spring, Jean Lowe's Your Place in the Multiverse and Francis De Erdely's Striking Figures.

"We're thrilled to bring these exhibitions highlighting two prominent California artists Jean Lowe and Francis De Erdely to the museum this spring," said Julie Perlin Lee, Executive Director of Laguna Art Museum. "Each artist has their own way of capturing the human condition specific to their time and place. Striking Figures is an important exhibition as it brings to light the work of a lesser-known artist who connects us to the diverse people and history of California."

Opening on March 19, Your Place in the Multiverse is a survey of Lowe's work drawn from the past twenty years, highlighting many of her most important installations, as well as new work. Primarily comprised of household craft media, Lowe's beautifully staged installations are often overwhelming, playing both on sensory overload and the irony of abundance as presented daily in our consumer culture. Your Place in the Multiverse is organized by the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University and is made possible with support from The Segerstrom Foundation.

Lowe creates art imbued with a proprietary blend of wry wit, visual seduction, and incisive cultural critique. Working in sculpture, painting, and installation, Lowe draws us into elaborate reconstructions of our own value systems, empowering, entertaining, and implicating us all at once. Lowe received her MFA from University of California, San Diego, where she was also a Lecturer until 2008. She has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; and the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati. Your Place in the Multiverse, was recently on view at the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University.

On May 14, the museum will present Striking Figures: The Work of Francis De Erdely, which will be the first major exhibition of De Erdely's work. Highlighting De Erdely's timeless ability to depict the simple grace of common people, Striking Figures depicts musicians, dancers, laborers, and social outsiders as a way of addressing issues of race, culture, and social strata in Southern California. Striking Figures is organized by Laguna Art Museum and guest curated by Alissa Anderson Campbell. A catalog will be published to accompany the exhibition.

Known for his social realist paintings of everyday people, De Erdely is a classically trained European painter who moved to the United States during World War II and went on to create some of the most striking figurative paintings in California Art. His depictions are historical documents of the period, expertly painted with a poignancy that remains relevant today. De Erdely has been included in more than twenty books about Los Angeles painters of the mid-century.

For more information about Jean Lowe's Your Place in the Multiverse and Francis De Erdely's Striking Figures at Laguna Art Museum, visit lagunaartmuseum.org.

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