Newspaper Reviews

"Browser art: Hancock instructor brings online annoyances to the cultural forefront"

Craig Shafer

For most of us, those pop-up ads that seem to generate out of nothing as we cruise through cyberspace are annoyances that we try to zap away as quickly as possible. But for one local artits, pop-ups, banners, buzz words, and images that lie just beyond our periphery are the stuff of creative inspiration.

Gabriel Navar, Allan Hancock College's newest art instructor-currently showing his art in the faculty show at David Ryan Gallery-has been working with layered images for years, but only recently has he put them in the context of the Internet, complete with browser borders and layers of random images creeping around the corners of panes. Partially obscured windows hint at messages that are just out of view. Navar's three-dimensional art makes the otherwise frustrating images into something intriguing that commands further exploration.

His art conveys the message that we are simultaneously capable of tuning in and filtering out information when bombarded with material.

"I oftern work with found materials-items that are around the house or attic or in the community," he said. "And I just started stacking it. When I begin, I don't know where I'm going."

Navar said that he allows for an organic approach that isn't entirely planned out in advance. Once he begins a project, his work becomes a stream of consciousness coming from tidbits he's seen in the media, items he's heard on the radio on his way to work, or buzzwords in general circulation. The ideas become layered images, often springing from the internet. His heavy use of the digital world was a conscious decision, in that he wants to create something opposite from the work of digital artists, who often try to make their art more painterly.

While the work may seem unfocused-jumping from ads to computer-error messages and from political and social commentary to humerous observation-it represents the constant flow of information into our consciousness.

"For me, I might approach them in a toungue-in-cheek way," he explained. "They're serious issues, and they part of our fabric, and that is what inspires me."

Similarity and dissimilarity coexist in Navar's explorations, and, though scattered, the disparate elements are nonetheless unified.

"You see an image of Osama, then this pop-up ad about immersing yourself in chocolate," Navar continued. "If not this, it might be abstract images inspired by a camping trip, so it's really just where I'm at."

With his current focus on the Internet, Navar has access to pretty much the whole world with just a click. It's a place he said he could spend lifetimes exploring, and that sentiment manifests itself in work that's simultaneously commentary, critique, and celebration. It's a journey that takes the viewer past the mundane to arrive at the substantive.

"Painting with a Global Perspective"

Paula King

Gabriel Navar isn't content to just paint his own reality. Like many people, Navar is in search for his own truth, but strives to explore the overall human condition through his own belief system.

This passion for painting provides an opportunity to present his point of view and then springboard viewers into a dialogue as a global community.

Growing up in Oakland, the Lafayette artist admired the community murals of the East Bay. This heavily influenced his work, which is filled with a passion for the iconography of Latin American culture. Using bold colors and overlapping images, Navar's canvases come alive with elements from his dreams, experiences, memories and predictions.

"His paintings are figurative with a surrealist, Latino sensibility", says Sally Douglas Arce of the SomArts Cultural Center in San Francisco. "Navar explores themes about relationships - human to human and human to the environment."

He is also inspired by a love of art history. Right now, he is obsessed with the dramatic quality of the Baroque movement.

As he painted two pieces dealing with the cycles of life and death, Navar studied the works of Goya. Through visions about the atrocities of war, Goya painted masterpieces, says Navar.

For a Day of the Dead show in San Francisco, Navar produced a painting that looks at the heightened anxiety of the nation in relationship to the national terrorist alert system and called it "Rainbow".

"Art that has a legacy is what gets talked about after the artist is gone", he says. "I'm fascinated by how war, photography, psychology and technology have influenced artists throughout history. It's all part of the social fabric."

"Navar shares his knowledge with students at Contra Costa College, Ohlone College and Walnut Creek's Civic Arts Education as a professor of art appreciation and art history.

"Even during turbulent times, Navar's art reflects a belief in the divine, miracles and the human race. In "The Blood of your Arch Angel", he illustrates the universal feelings of joy and fear during this anxious period in history. The moody piece reflects the comfort of trusting in guardian angels.

After watching the movie "Frida", Navar became intrigued by art as a consumer product and reproduced Frida Kahlo's famous wedding day portrait. In it, he presented Frida and her husband Diego Rivera as products with price tags which represent how virtually anything can be sold these days.

Navar is constantly admiring artists throughout history. In his paintings, the viewer may catch a glimpse of a Madonna portrait, as first sketched by Leonardo da Vince, hidden beneath the main the main subject. This overlaying of imagery is his favorite technique.

"My work is allegorical and mythic as I tap into states of mind, nature and primeval forces," he says. "I evoke memories and hopes, fears and love, treasuring the ineffable."

The ecologically aware artist can often be spotted pulling items out of the garbage. He takes these recycled pieces with an untold history and transforms them into piecews of fine art.

Among the re-used materials in his home studio are head boards, doors, windows and picture frames. He calls the rediscovered treasures "chance encounters."

While a significant amount of Navar's collection is inspired by broader themes, paintings also come from something as simple as breakfast. One day at the breakfast table, Navar decided to morph a bottle of honey onto a portrait of his wife as a symbol of undying affection. It's appropriately titled "Honey."

"I want my paintings to co-exist," he says. "I go with what I feel. I let my imagination go."

Many of his subjects are women meditating or praying in nature. These mixed media paintings are based on an interconnectedness with the natural world and others.

He calls these images "visual prayers" or "odes to life." They are based on myths, spiritual belief systems and the supernatural.

"My image-making is a form of continuing a dialogue within myself, my community and the divine," he says. "It is one of my personal goals to manifest warmth, love and peace."

"Painter Inaugurates San Mateo Gallery"

Cheri Lucas

An exploration of cultural identity, war, consumerism and the human condition as it relates to the cosmos, the art of Gabriel Navar represents what it means to be an individual in our complex world.

Defining his style is a futile task. His work, painted on found and recycled objects, is undoubtedly contemporary, conscious of our spiritual relationships with nature and celebratory of his Latino culture.

But he blends iconography of art's past - like those of Goya, Matisse and Picasso - and symbols of contemporary American life into dreamy "figure-landscape juxtapositions" that make it impossible to classify his style.

In our culture, everyone is connected. National borders, Navar says, seem not to exist. Global communication is part of our everyday lives. This interdependency of individuals and cultures, as well as their imminent, soulful connections to a larger, cosmic grid, are what fuel his work.

In his art, the notion of "varying entities and institutions" coexisting or unifying as one illustrates that being an individual in our world means being just a tiny element of a more immense, divine network. Simply put, Navar's art is awe-inspiring, making us wonder what it means to be alive.

Born in Mexico and raised in Oakland, Navar relates most to the surrealist, muralist and pop styles, but chooses not to openly categorize his work. And "I don't consider myself a realist, but am interested in painting things the way they are," he said.

"Hope," a common thread in his art, "is what attracts me to powerful works of the past," he said. His work also explores the spiritual realm, capturing "moments of solitude leading to an inner peace," he said.

But reflecting on the uncertainty in our world, he catches himself being more cynical. In "Cuando Llueve, Llueve a Chorros (When It Rains, It Pours)," which is at the "Reflections of Spirit" exhibition at the new San Tomas Fine Arts Gallery on Baldwin Avenue in San Mateo, he transforms the Morton Salt girl - the image of an everyday cooking product - in a piece commenting on "an age of a false sense of security, where nothing is sacred and nothing is really safe anymore," he said.

The girl, dressed patriotically, holds a bomb and dons a face of death. Her umbrella, which is supposed to protect her, is in flames. "Cuando Llueve, Llueve a Chorros" criticizes war and also states a universal theme that "destructive forces may be within all of us," he said.

Borrowing other recognizable images like the Cucamonga honey bear or the Tapat’o hot sauce man, Navar remarks on our commercial society. "There's now a fine line between what you sell and what is considered sacred," he said. In another painting exhibited, he juxtaposes religious imagery with McDonald's and Starbucks logos.

"I have recurring mood swings. I can paint something peaceful, but then I'll have a statement about the war. But even when all hell breaks loose, I always want to have some sense of optimism, that better days are ahead for us, for the world." he said. It is his "mission" to bring optimism to people as an educator, artist and poet and to create art that allows others to foster their own interpretations.

Navar, who teaches at Ohlone College in Fremont and Contra Costa College in San Pablo, finds Spanish master Goya most to his liking, using his and other artist's images out of context to continue the legacy of art.

"Things work in cycles. Even though our wars are different from the wars Goya experienced, they both involve human suffering and pain," he said.

Navar continues these cycles and remembers the past by acknowledging it in his work.

The first contemporary artist to be inaugurated in San Tomas Fine Arts Gallery, Navar and gallery owner Tom Gomez are particularly excited to display a mix of Spanish Colonial and Contemporary Latino Art.

Just finishing shows in Hayward and Antioch and preparing for another at the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Chicago, the Lafayette resident has a reception at San Tomas Fine Arts Gallery on Oct. 4 from 7 to 9 pm. His work is also displayed at Latham Square in Oakland until Oct. 9 .

Four Bay Area Artists Search for Meaning

Joe Sharkey
Staff Writer

Is it just me or does it seem that we are all on a futile search for something deep and profound that, for the most part, seems utterly absent from our everyday lives? I mean, that is why we go to church, play sports, do scientific research, or travel right? Personally, I seek to reveal such ethereal notions in order to bring some sort of hope, joy and purpose to life.

Anyhow, I have recently been reassured this quest is not a burden I bear alone, thanks to the new exhibit, Cuatro Voces, in USF's Thacher Gallery. In this quiet space in the Gleeson Library, I found four others who, like me, seem to be searching for something meaningful through their artwork. As I examined the art pieces of Zulema Di Marco, Santiago Gervasi, Gabriel Navar and Veronica Rojas, I tried to see what, if anything, tied to see what, if anything, tied these four artists together. For one, they all work in the Bay Area an represent contemporary Latin American culture and identity. They also use art in an individual struggle for definition and meaning, each in his or her unique way.

Santiago Gervasi's huge canvases describe the human search for meaning in the most raw and basic way. Each painting is a confusion of imagery, texture and materials. He combines geometrical forms with sketches, subdued architectures and dark spaces to create a cluttered desktop, where the truth seems to be hidden somewhere within, yet is impossible to find. Sadly, this reminded me of my own workspaces and hopeless disorganization. On the bright side, Gervasi makes me realize I am not alone in this.

Veronica Rojas' work takes us out of the chaos, and puts us on a very specific search. Her paintings are a narrative where her symbol of the roped sphere seeks to define itself. I found myself a bit frustrated trying to translate her symbol system for myself, but I think that just goes to prove that the search for meaning is a very personal one. On a purely visual level I found the paintings delightful. They are humorous in their imagery, combining waxy and paper-like textures, pencil drawings and soft colors.

Continuing the theme of the search, Zulema Di Marco's stone sculptures are archeological in nature. She creates multiple textures in beautiful marble with each piece representing merely a fragment of some greater monument. The subjects of her pieces are primarily mythological. From the stone, Zulema attempts to excavate ancient truths and meanings that were known to humanity in centuries past, but are lost to us now.

Gabriel Navar takes our search in yet another direction, tapping into the unconscious. Visually his images are immediately attractive with his use of vibrant colors and surrealist compositions. Navar layers many images on top of one another, like a blurry realm of dreams. His paintings describe the emotional journey in search of roots, connectivity and community, and are hopelessly optimistic, describing a realm of unlimited possibilities.

So where does this all get me and my search for meaning? Each of the four artists in Cuatro Voces finds a different approach to the search, and therefore a different sliver of the truth. Gervasi tell me its all in the process. Di Marco claims it is in our communal history. Rojas suggests that it is a private understanding. And Navar joyfully forgets any constraints. So this get me precisely nowhere and everywhere, just as confused as ever. But I guess that means I will have to keep looking and working. As for you, you should definitely start your search in the Thacher Gallery.

'Cuatro Voces' at Thacher Gallery

Cuatro Voces (Four Voices) raises a tricky question without necessarily meaning to. When it comes to a work of art, who does the talking, and who does the listening? The curatorial statement of Cuatro Voces introduces the four featured artists as speakers representing Òthe many voices of Latin American culture and identity, holding forth on spirituality, politics, death and myth. But an art gallery is not an academic symposium, and art at its best is far more than a treatise. Viewers stand transfixed, nodding and mumbling in front of a work of art not just because they've heard and understood the artist, but because the artist has also heard and understood them.

Serenata (Serenade) is a striking, inviting work by Navar, showing a hand reaching into man's open mouth to deposit the sun on his tongue. His eyes are closed, attuned to transcendent harmonies that have him humming along-- an image that succinctly captures the viewer's experience with some, if not all, of the work in Cuatro Voces.

Singers Impressive in Premiere of Piece

By PETER SMITH
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 19, 2001

ST. PETERSBURG -- When a composer premieres a new piece, there is always a certain fear mixed with the anticipatory pleasure. Will it be understandable, not necessarily immediately hummable, but graspable to the moderately musically educated ear?

On Sunday afternoon, the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay joined choral groups from area high schools in the "Festival of Voices," including the premiere of Paul Basler's Cantos Alegres (Joyful Songs). Jo-Michael Scheibe conducted.

With Spanish folk-based melodies mixed with sprightly rhythms and lush harmonies over angular accompaniment, Cantos Alegres is immediately accessible, yet challenging.

Accenting the nine-section piece is Gabriel Navar's poetry, which Basler used as inspiration. Navar's poetry is reminiscent of Neruda at his most delighted. Listen:

energy flows, flows . . .within me it enters in abundancethe senses are a bridgewhen I fall with the force of waterlike a petal of light . . .

The strength and pleasure found even in this English translation are echoed by Basler's music. His French horn and the poetry of Navar give the piece an immediate consistency that is echoed by the singers. With both lush harmonies and La Bamba rhythms, Cantos Alegres contains much to be joyful about.

Peter Smith. "Singers impressive in premiere of piece", St. Petersburg Times, St. Petersburg, FL, February 19, 2001

"To Your Health!" at Euphrat Museum of Art

by Debra Koppman (freelance writer and artist based in Oakland, California, USA)

To Your Health! is a kind of curatorial toast to the potential for art to function as a catalyst for physical, psychic and spiritual healing. Even the possibility that art might be available as a tool in the journey towards health must be seen as encouraging in a world where ill health and lack of access to health care abounds. While the exhibition is not initially obviously cohesive either in terms of aesthetics or technique, holding the disparate pieces together is a unifying thread of hope predicated on the notion that works of art might actually function to induce healing. The eleven artists participating in this exhibition essentially appear to act on faith, directly inspired by a need to return oneself, a loved one or the larger society to a state of balance, integration and health.

Shirley Fisher attempts to create visual invitations for the promotion of healing through photographs focusing on light as a theme with spiritual implications. Younhee Paik creates large-scale, predominately blue "sky paintings" designed to hang wavelike from the ceiling and to function as visual safe-houses. Both Sylvia Giblin's healing mandalas and Judy Schavrien's portraits record processes of personal transformations, while Dori Grace U. Lemen's outstretched garment invoking her female ancestors serves as a reminder of the relationship between connection, belonging, history and health.

Traditionally and cross-culturally, the sharing of food has provided opportunities for the forging of crucial and potentially health-inducing connections between mothers and children, families, larger social groups, and previously unconnected strangers. Secret Appetites, created by Robin Lasser and Kathryn Sylva, consists of an immense, sterile dining table set with ten empty black plates, each etched with the partial stories of survivors of eating disorders. Gabriel Navar's painting Probando un Peque–o Ombligo del Cielo depicts a young man aided by two walking sticks as he climbs the steps leading to a doorway, while behind him lies the fields and memories of the food-sustenance which has left behind. In this piece, food becomes a symbol of a positive and sustaining memory of connections, something almost tangible that can be carried as a talisman.

Tools or charms to be used for the calling and channeling of healing energy are offered by Kaleo Ching and Elise Dirlan-Ching in the forms of poems/incantations, artifacts and masks. The poems and artifacts function as fairy-dancers flitting around a series of densely decorated masks which seem to be reflections of specific qualities, desires or attributes designed for the summoning of internal strength and spirit-power. Hope is summoned into Sharon Siskin's Resistance, as huge bird wings accompanied by choir-like-call-and response text are etched into mirrors and wood framed from which hang small artifacts relating to seeds, wings, angels and rebirth. Reflections of the viewer created by the use of the mirror remind us of our own ephemerality and possibility for transcendence, while simultaneously pointing to our own collusion in the creation of meaning and the possibility for health.

Visual diary Paintings and poetry from a Mexican-American artist in San Francisco

by Juliana Garcia Cornejo

A woman rests with her legs crossed. The shiny reddish light that comes out of her torso expands across the room to dilute the contours of her body. She is a spiritual novice who is communicating with the cosmos.

This is not a scene from the latest Hollywood movie. It's part of "Transcendencia," a new exhibition of the paintings and poetry by Mexican-American artist Gabriel Navar, currently on display at San Francisco's Mission Cultural Center for the Latino Arts.

Transcendence refers to "painting, creation, and poetry as a way of celebrating the imagination and existence," Navar told El Mensajero. "To transcend is to reach a more festive level... it's magic."

Gabriel paints the contents of his sweetest dreams and most terrible nightmares. "Each piece is a visual diary, a fragment of myself," says the artist. "It's exploration... an entrance to another level of oneself."

In this collection of spoken and painted images, the human figure constitutes a fundamental element, Navar follows his curiosity and celebrates man, recognizing his senses an consciousness. Gabriel also uses men and women to represent duality and the balance of nature. But his search goes beyond the visible elements that surround us. "It's a mixture of the conscious and subconscious world," says Navar.

"Transcendencia" highlights Navar's development throughout the years. Winner of several national awards in plastic arts, Navar has just completed his Masters in Arts at San Jose State University. "Painting has become a celebration and a knowledge of the expression of my being," said Navar.

"Transcendencia" is on display until February 28. Open to the public every day from 10:00 a.m. to 4 p.m., Mission Cultural Center for the Latino Arts, 2868 Mission St., between 24 St. and 25 St., San Francisco. For more information call (415) 821-1155

California's best Art League hosts statewide show

by Julia Chiapella

Every year the Santa Cruz Art League opens its doors to artists all over the state with its Annual Statewide Exhibit.

Juried by a Bay Area art professional, the resulting collection of work is typically eclectic. There's always lot of variety in style and medium. This year's 68th Annual Statewide is no exception in that regard.

Where this year's exhibit departs from past years is in overall quality of technique. The 68th Statewide presents some command performances in all mediums. Juried this year by Santa Cruz's very own Kathleen Moodie, curator of art for the Museum of Art an History, the 68th Statewide reflects not only Moodie's years of expertise in presenting stellar works of art for the Art and History Museum bu also her desire to showcase work that may be creatively beyond work traditionally seen in contemporary art.

That's not an unusual focus for the Art League which, in recent year, has demonstrated a penchant for encouraging creativity among regional artist. Moodie takes that penchant and ratchets it up a couple of notches.

In the end, the 68th Annual Statewide Exhibit is brimming with vitality and pache, a collection that dramatically showcases a small portion of California's artistic talent.

Curated by Richard Bennett the exhibit makes good use of the Art League's available wall space, forcing the eye to take in larger pieces from a distance and to ge close to smaller pieces. And, as usual, there is the wide variety of mediums: photography, mixed media, oil, acrylic, watercolor and sculpture. This year also features a piece by Steve Aubrey of San Jose that is accomplished with a lenticular 3-D graphic, a computer-generated version of a photograph that is created as seen from 20 different points of reference.

But the variety of technique is further enhanced by a variety of color. From Carolyn Fernandez's "Poolside Party !" to Lisa Merril Lippert's "The Eyes Have It," the exhibition is filled with a vivid an unabashed sense of color. No more resplendent in this color put to use than in Gabriel Navar's "Splinter of the Sun," an acrylic and oil painted wooden door that hangs suspended from the gallery's ceiling. A visual retelling of the Assumption of Mary, Navar gives us the image of a contemporary woman on the back of a snake that is held aloft by winged angel. The woman holds a picture frame and within it are additional figures standing in a river. The whole, evocative tableau is given particular brilliance by Navar's heady use of color. Strikingly rich, it gives the 68th Statewide an impressive centerpiece.

Indeed, the oils, acrylics and watercolors in this collection give the 68th Statewide a painterly feel. John Clendening's "Snow or Blueridge Apple Orchard" gives us a visually stunning remake of the traditional landscape, forcing the viewer to gaze long and hard at the dozens of apples gathered close range in wooden crates while the snow-covered Blueridge Mountains beckon from the distance. Kathryn Stowell's "Isabella" shows off her talent with brush stroke and color.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, folks. There are also haunting photo sculptures by Nancy Sevier, one of which took home one of the five exhibition awards. Diana Jacobs "View From the Porch" reeks of a wistful nostalgia that's adroitly accomplished by her etching skills. Aline Smithson and Jenny Doll contribute evocative photos and James B. Robertson has lots of fun with his steel and brass sculpture, "Joy Ride."

The 68th Annual Statewide Exhibit brims with creative life. What's more, it brings together not only experimentation and imagination but also a wealth of accomplished technique. Try not to miss it.

The 68th Annual Statewide Exhibit is on display at the Santa Cruz Art League, 526 Broadway in Santa Cruz, through Sept. 13.

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