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On Friday, May 30,
from 7 to 9 pm, Sanchez Art Center will hold an opening reception
for three new exhibitions. In the Main Gallery, Robert Armstrong
amazes and delights with his mixed media sculptures, paintings,
and installations in a show titled A Conjunction of Punctuative
Emunctories, curated by Philip E. Linhares. The East Gallery
presents artwork from the San Francisco Veterans Art Guild. And
in West Gallery, the Art Guild of Pacifica gives free rein to the
imagination in Artistic License. Music will be provided
by the Jazz Cats.
Robert Armstrong
uses found objects modified into new forms to surprise, delight,
challenge, and charm. The exhibit title may sound daunting, but
his work is innovative and open-ended in scope and intent, with
a sense of fun and exploration that is infectious. Armstrong found
the term emunctory in an old dictionary, where it was defined
as any body part that gives off waste products. The physicality
inherent in the term seems part and parcel of Armstrong’s process
as he reworks found materials such as dried kelp, wool, straw, paper
pulp, vinyl records, and bits of metal and plastic into works of
art. Examples include his modified vinyl records enhanced with pattern,
color, and added materials, or a collection of kelp-wrapped pieces
he calls “hardware and tools.” These works also give a definite
nod to the burden of “stuff” humankind continues to place on planet
Earth. One might say that Armstrong’s work aims to stir up as much
as possible with a big spoon.
The show’s title also suggests language, and indeed Armstrong is deeply involved with pattern and the shifting geometries of meaning, as shown in his large paintings that seem like hieroglyphics from some combined past/future. As curator Phil Linhares comments, these works “hint at the unbridled creativity that he is capable of. One simply has to experience his work in person to really get it and enjoy it.” Armstrong has exhibited at the San Francisco Art Institute, the Garage Gallery in Berkeley, the Wiegand Gallery in Belmont, and the Barbara Anderson Gallery in Berkeley. The artist will talk about his work in a free lecture on Sunday, June 29, at 4 pm.
Sanchez Art Center is located at 1220 Linda Mar Boulevard in Pacifica, 1.5 miles east of Highway 1. Following opening night, the galleries are open Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 1–5 pm and by appointment through June 29.
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