This
exhibition presents four diverse approaches to three-dimensional
form. Jesús Y. Dominguez has created large-scale sculptures
based on childhood memories that are accompanied by personal narratives.
Tom Driscoll’s sculptures are colorful, whimsical works in
aluminum. Kenneth Capps is exhibiting figurative work that will
be on view for the first time. James Skalman’s minimal sculptures
bear traces of industrial materials that reinforce the poetic nature
of abstraction.
Sculpture has shaped the course of visual history. From figurative
representations in Greco-Roman antiquity to modernist abstractions,
the history of sculpture is deep and varied and continues to be
re-examined by artists working in the twenty-first century. This
exhibition presents work by four prominent sculptors working in
the San Diego region: Kenneth Capps, Jesús Y. Dominguez,
Tom Driscoll, and James Skalman. Differing greatly in style, material,
and approach, their work demonstrates the power and complexity of
contemporary sculpture.
The work of Carlsbad artist Kenneth
Capps is included in public and private collections
throughout the United States, including the Museum of Modern Art
in New York. Capps received his MFA from the University of California,
San Diego in 1975 and has lived in the San Diego area for the past
forty years. This exhibition features a selection of abstracted
figurative sculptures from a series begun in the 1990s. Made of
varying widths of solid steel, the work in this series explores
the relationship between metals when subjected to extreme impact
and penetration. The evidence of Capps’ process is revealed
in perforations and delicate markings on the surface of the metal.
Additional works in the exhibition include elements of sound and
motion.
Kenneth Capps, Bullet Progression: First Penetration (detail),
1990, steel
Tom Driscoll
is a native of San Diego who has chosen to live and work in Southern
California. His work has received critical acclaim and has been
included in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout the San
Diego region. While his early work was made of cast cement and included
large-scale sculptures, it is only recently that Driscoll has added
color, imbuing the material and forms with a whimsical sensibility.
Made of light-weight aluminum, Driscoll’s current abstract
sculptural works appear as line drawings, floating forms both delicate
and ethereal. This most recent installation was made in response
to the gallery space at the Oceanside Museum of Art.
Tom Driscoll, installation view (detail), 2007, oil on aluminum
tubing
Jesús Y. Dominguez
is Professor Emeritus of San Diego State University in the School
of Art, Design, and Art History, where he taught for twenty-six
years. Public commissions of civic leaders by Dominguez can be seen
throughout San Diego and in New York. In 2000, Dominguez began a
series of sculptures based on memories of growing up near Death
Valley in Trona, California. Events that occurred in this desolate
landscape reverberate throughout the artist’s narrative installations
and wood sculptures. The exhibition includes El postre de mi
padre (My Father’s Dessert) (2000), a large-scale installation
that pays tribute to the memory of the artist’s father. Also
included are several wall sculptures from the artist’s Passage
series, made from vintage produce crates.
Jesús Y. Dominguez, Passage Series: Bronco,
2007, wood and paper
James Skalman received
his MFA from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1984
and is currently Chair of the Department of Art and Design at Point
Loma Nazarene University, where he has taught since 1991. His exhibition
history includes several large-scale public projects in San Diego
as well as solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout
the United States and abroad. Much of Skalman’s work is characterized
by the use of everyday materials with an emphasis on the importance
of process. Carefully planned and meticulously executed, Skalman’s
recent work fuses industrial materials with sleek, minimal lines,
revealing subtle references to architecture and landscape.
James Skalman, Jungle Sheet (detail), 2007, mixed media
