Axis Through The Gift Shop is a holiday exhibition offering work from Axis members for immediate sale. It’s a moment for our non commercial gallery to briefly engage in COMMERCE–as a form and in earnest. Come sample our wares, enjoy a who’s-who of the current membership, and celebrate the holidays by bringing home some art for yourself, your family and your friends.
“Being a Dad is hard work. I want to show all that work. Mostly the violent and tender moments because those are the ones that remain with me. As a father my role is both complicated and beautiful and I use the cowl and tartan as a method to express this American Father. I never grew up in the ‘hood but I have seen people wear them. The antagonist wears a cowl because I want to connect the religiosity to the violence in a sincere way. The violence of the Father can be explicit, oblique or complicit. And the tartan connects the Father to both European roots of the Scottish Klan and those of the Middle East, Asia and North Africa, where the Check originated.”
The last year and a half has been one long held breath; a time of caution, of waiting, of restraint, of restriction and withdrawal. It has brought new hardships and magnified existing ones, but it has also forced us to find new ways to connect. The works in this exhibition are a meditation on the times in which we find ourselves. They are a way of externalizing and processing the tension and fear with which we live, and also a celebration of new forms of connection and communication that have emerged as a result of our separation from each other. I offer my held breath to you; I offer to hold your breath for a moment so that you might find a better way to breathe.
![Eliza Gregory – [Placeholder]](https://axisgallery.org/cmswebsite/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/show-imageAndTitle-365x365.jpg)
A lot of amazing people are working on the theme of humans’ relationships to the places they live—the planet as a whole, and the micro-ecosystems of each home, thinking about how we relate to our neighborhoods and local environments. My work on this topic has begun with an investigation of the work of others, from looking over my colleague and co-teacher Doug Dertinger’s shoulder at his decades-long research into visualizing landscape, to reading the new book by Suzanne Simard about her research into forest intelligence, to speaking with my friends and neighbors about the plants they nurture and the creatures they observe on their farms and in their gardens. This exhibition is an invitation to you to enter this research alongside me, and it’s a question to you as well—what else should I look at? What else should I think about? How do you think about and engage with land, with your physical home? I’ll be in the gallery to hear your answers, paper and pens will be provided, or you can send me a message at info@elizagregory.com
Axis Gallery is pleased to feature Faith J McKinnie, independent curator based in Sacramento, as juror for our 16th National Juried Exhibition.
At first we fear change but once we learn to accept it, we can welcome and embrace it. Sometimes an evolution needs to be forced, causing a crack to form in the facade we create to protect ourselves, and see the light to start to break through. The light promoted the growth, it fed it, nurtured it, and cultivated it allowing expansion and continued development never imagined possible. “Anthem” is a visual representation of breaking through the illusion, allowing oneself to grow freely, and sharing the light with others. Anthropomorphizing these emotions as a freely formed amorphous structure it allowed for the cracks and imperfections to be embraced and enhanced. The light increases as the composition grows, and verges on dominating the entire canvas.
Axis Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Nick Shepard on view from June 4–June 27, 2021. Shepard will present an artist talk Friday, June 11. This is Shepard’s third solo exhibition in Axis’s main gallery.
For this exhibition, titled “As Built”, Shepard displays photographs of temporary studio constructions that are cobbled together from scraps and zip ties, held in place with little more than some screws and gravity. As in his past shows at Axis, Shepard uses unfinished structures as physical interventions in the gallery and surfaces on which to display the printed images. For the first time, Shepard displays constructions in the gallery as sculptures.
Axis Gallery is excited to present new paintings from Sacramento artist, Omar Thor Arason. His current body of work explores the hypothetical overlap between theoretical physics, psychology, religion and mythology. Taking an enthusiast’s approach to complex subjects rather than a comprehensive understanding offers exciting implications that are closed to those who possess a deep understanding of the subjects i.e. in many ways the more knowledge is acquired, the more one becomes aware of the limitations and boundaries. The work imagines a reality where these varied fields collide, interweave, and exert their influence on each other, with embedded figures serving as the ever present conscious observer.
Axis Gallery is proud to present Sundering the Unconscious: An Indigenous View of the Transformation of Western Values; a two-person exhibition by artists Stan Padilla and Ray Gonzales. The years 2016-2020 were part of an intensifying, tumultuous, transformational period in human society. All of this was predicted in the ancient Mexican indigenous prophecies. The artist’s work presented here is a “living expression, current view” of this unfolding evolutionary process. A multi-media exhibition that addresses life consciousness, death, unconsciousness, transformation and a mystical basis for a new world order. This will be an art gallery transformed into a temple space and the artists into storytellers. Don’t miss this emergence into Spring 2021
Axis Gallery is pleased to present “The Ceiling, Floor and a Television Sky”, an exhibition of sculpture and photographic works by Ben Hunt. This recent body of work, inspired by Surrealism, Hunt explores imagery taken of skyscapes, landscapes and found objects through the use of synthetic materials such as resin, acrylic and aluminum. The exhibition is on view in Axis’ Main gallery throughout the month of February.
Ben Hunt is a visual artist and “fabricator”. Born and raised in San Diego, CA, He received his Master of Fine Arts degree, in Spatial Art, from San José State University in 2008. He has exhibited both regionally and nationally and has taught sculpture at both Idaho State University and California State University, Sacramento. Currently, Ben works at California State University Sacramento as instructional and technical staff in the Art Department. He is an active member of Axis gallery in Sacramento where He lives and maintains an art studio practice.