Keith Puccinelli is creating a new body of drawings, sculptures, and an interactive installation called “The Morgue” for his first solo exhibition in Los Angeles at the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis.

The title of the exhibition, The Wondercommon, combines two seemingly opposite ideas into one and refers in part to the artist’s use of common materials and tinkering techniques to evoke a sense of wonder or the wonderful. Simple pen and ink drawings on paper and sculptures are made out of everyday materials like twigs, leaves, shoes, pipe, glue, house paint, varnish, mud, and bone. The strong juxtaposition of materials often brings a sense of humor to glaze or emphasize the serious or tragic presented in the work. The title of the show is also a direct reference to the wunderkammer or a “cabinet of curiosities,” which is the genesis of museums as we know them today.

The exhibition is curated by Meg Linton, Director of the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design. It is sponsored by OTIS Board of Governors, Pasadena Art Alliance, and generous individuals from our community. The exhibition catalogue is 80 pages with full color reproductions, and features an essays by Meg Linton, and by Nancy Doll, Director of the Weatherspoon Art Museum at University of North Carolina at Greensboro. It highlights work from the 1990s to present. It is available for sale in the gallery or contact Kathy MacPherson at galleryinfo@otis.edu.

Press Release (PDF)

Two Madmen: The Art of Clive Barker and Myron Dyal June 24 – August 30, 2008
Reception: Saturday, July 26, 6-8pm

Clive Barker and Myron Dyal are two artists who have a similar fantastic vision of a seemingly diabolical world that they are feverishly compelled to render. Their drawings, paintings, and sculptures illustrate alternate realms filled with archetypal figures and places that have littered human consciousness for centuries. They take us through the darkest forests into the depths of their imaginations where we see tricksters, soothsayers, mystics, and guardians as we walk through Elysian Fields and trespass in the underworld. Presenting their work together is a dynamic conversation between two men who live very different lives, yet have a kinship in their imaginations and the stories they want to tell.  Together they synergize and validate the existence of this macabre dimension and the effect is profound. This exhibition is curated by Greg Escalante and Meg Linton.

Clive Barker
Award-winning director, screenwriter, playwright and poet, Clive Barker is also an accomplished artist. His art has, in the last ten years, become a more fundamental part of his written work than ever before. When the character Kaspar Wolfswinkel appeared in oil on a huge canvas in front of him, unbidden, it became the start of his creation of a whole new world: The Abarat. Select paintings from this five-novel, fully illustrated series are featured in this exhibition. As well as braving live painting sessions at numerous festivals, Barker opened his 2005 Visions of Heaven and Hell (And Then Some) exhibition at Bert Green Fine Art in Los Angeles with Zoomen—a live body-painting session where he created living art in front of bemused but engaged crowds. Barker is currently working on a new photographic project, Imagining Man, which focuses on the human form expressing the human imagination. www.bgfa.us, www.clivebarker.info

Myron Dyal
Dyal is a modern mystic, classically trained musician, and a self-taught Southern California artist.  He has spiritual visions that are the catalysts for the vast oeuvre of his work that spans nearly three decades and includes more than 6,000 drawings, paintings, and sculptures. When he was four years old he awoke from a three month long coma, which his parents believed to be caused by demon possession. At that point, he says his mind was erased, his visions began, and he had Epilepsy. Dyal’s imagery is primal, dark, and folkloric. He uses papier-mâché to create life sized sculpture, because its immediacy accommodates his urgency to see his objects in three-dimensional form. His figurative and organic forms are derived from visions he experienced during epileptic seizures and self-induced trances that have aided him in dealing with his condition. Dyal has kept his prolific production of art secret for many years until he had his first solo exhibition  at the Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana. The accompanying catalog for that exhibition is being released on July 26, 2008 in conjunction with this exhibition at Otis College of Art and Design. www.grandcentralartcenter.com, www.myrondyal.com