Riverside Art Museum

Jeff Soto: Turning in Circles

December 2, 2008 - February 21, 2009

RECEPTIONS: Dec 13, 2008

Julia Morgan Society Reception 6 - 7pm

Public Reception 7 - 9pm

Nowadays, painting in southern California is all over the place, stylistically as well as geographically. But it has been adopted with particular verve by one still new, rapidly evolving genre. The manifold sources for this new genre, from graffiti to cartoons to psychedelia to car (and surf/skateboard) customizing and on and on, provide these self-styled, technically adept "lowbrow" or "newbrow" or "pop surrealist" painters with an immense variety of styles, subjects, attitudes, and rhetorics. Riverside artist Jeff Soto has achieved an especially prominent place among the legions of "newbrow" painters.  In his work of the past couple of years, Soto has reached a clarity of intent, as well as pitch of technique, that embodies a true vision – true, that is, to his grasp of reality, not just to the making of a richly faceted yet coherent image. Soto made his reputation on visually assured, pictorially ambitious paintings; now, he...

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PAINTING IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: THE 1980s Neo-Expressionism and Driven to Abstraction II December 2, 2008 - February 21, 2009

RECEPTIONS: Dec 13, 2008

Julia Morgan Society Reception 6 - 7pm

Public Reception 7 - 9pm

PAINTING IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: Southern California has not traditionally been a location in which painting has thrived. Plenty of painters have worked quite happily here, from the plein air landscapists of the late 19th century to the muralists of the WPA to the symbolic expressionists and urban painters of the 1950s and 1960s. But unlike, say, New York or San Francisco, where painting has always been the dominant artistic medium and to be an Artist is to be a Painter, Los Angeles and environs have been only as hospitable to painters as they have to any other image-makers, in two or three dimensions. The emphasis in these parts, in fact, has always been on the image rather than the medium, perhaps because of the proximity of Hollywood; indeed, in this neck of the woods, photography's stature has long matched painting's. But in the last few decades the prominence of painting...

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Designing Weavers

Feb. 14 - Apr. 4, 2009

Reception: Thursday, March 5, 6-9 pm

Established in 1975, Designing Weavers is a nationally recognized juried fiber guild known for the diverse range of work produced by its members and is based in Los Angeles, California.  Coinciding with their annual conference in Riverside in early March, RAM will display 25 woven pieces from its professional artist members....

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SELECTIONS FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION

9/09/08-1/03/09

Mezzanine & Lobby

Reception 10/4

JMS 5-6pm

Public 6-9pm

RAM received a number of important donations of artworks to our growing Permanent Collection in the past year. This exhibition of Selections from the Permanent Collection will unveil some of these new artworks, in addition to spotlighting some of our other outstanding works that haven't been exhibited recently. In particular, a variety of previous exhibited works from last year's large donation of artworks from Beverly and Stuart Denenberg will be highlighted in this exhibition....

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Riverside - Ensenada, Mexico Sister City Art Exhibitions

January 8 - February 6, 2009

Reception: Thursday, February 5, 6-9 pm

In partnership with the Riverside Community Arts Association (RCAA) and the International Relations Council, RAM has co-organized cultural exhibitions of talented artists between the two Sister Cities.  Ten Ensenada artists will be displayed at RAM (and ten at RCAA).  Twenty Riverside artists are currently exhibited in Ensenada, Mexico thru Dec. 15, 2008....

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