Neither Here Nor There January 25, 2008

Renny Pritikin, noted Bay Area curator, collaborates with Kimberly Johansson to bring new Valley artists to Oakland. Have you always assumed that what's happening of note in the arts in Northern California stops at the Carquinez Bridge? Renny Pritikin, former chief curator at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and currently director of the Nelson Gallery and Fine Arts Collection, which is the fine arts museum for UC Davis, begs to differ.

He has curated a show of 5 dynamic young artists from the Sacramento and Davis area for Johansson Projects of Oakland. The show will run from January 25th, 2008 to March 7 2008 and will include Nathan Cordero, Richard Haley, Ross Khalsa, Kyle Monhollen, and Lisa Prettol.

"As a long-time San Franciscan I was amazed and thrilled when I came to Davis to discover so many exciting and original artists working here. I have selected a range of emerging artists doing work that always has something I learn from,” says Pritikin. Cordero works in found door skin, which he cuts into to create both imagistic and text-based works. Haley works in sculpture and video making tasks and assignments for himself. In a recent work he made a video in which he sank his rowboat to coincide exactly in time with the setting of the sun. Khalsa is a painter obsessed with trucks and busses rendered in a faux-naive style. Monhollen is a sculptor who makes objects that document his physical distance from friends and family back in Kentucky. Prettol is a sculptor whose wall works walks the line among decorative objects, girliness, and punk rawness. Her newest work includes torn cardboard, glitter and paint.

Official Website: http://johanssonprojects.com/neither_show.html