Up-Cycle

Axis Gallery is pleased to present "Up-Cycle", featuring paintings by six regional California artists who combine diverse imagery, techniques, processes, and materials to manifest new potential for art historical genres.

The inclination to collect and assemble elements is an aesthetic strategy employed to great effect by artists throughout the Sacramento Valley and surrounding regions. The varied results achieved by these six artists, from fragmented abstractions and improvised narratives, to symbolic pastiche and everything in-between, demonstrate the robustness of this approach in contemporary painting.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

Rachelle Agundes
Jose Arenas
Jeff Mayry
Jeff Myers
Karla Wozniak
John Yoyogi Fortes

ABOUT THE CURATORS

Frank J. Stockton’s paintings gained recognition through their inclusion in the noteworthy exhibition "American Genre: Contemporary Painting" at the Maine Institute of Contemporary Art in 2017. He has twice been featured in New American Paintings. In 2019 he curated Nothing Special, a series of six pop-up exhibitions mounted in Los Angeles, CA and at Somos Art House in Berlin, Germany. Solo presentations of his work have been showcased at Samuel Freeman, DENK, and Iris Project galleries in Los Angeles. He resides in Sacramento with his wife Vanessa and their two children. Visit his website to learn more: https://www.frankstockton.com/

Mirabel Wigon is an artist, curator, and educator residing in the San Joaquin Valley of California. Her works have been featured in numerous group exhibitions both regionally and nationally. Her recent work has been exhibited in Hollow Veil at Axis Gallery in Sacramento, CA; Fragments at Strata Gallery in Santa Fe, NM; New Voices at the Jacki Headley University Art Gallery in Chico, California; Made in California at Brea Gallery in Brea, CA; and Painted 2021: 5th Biennial Survey at Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio.  She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Traditional Art from California State University, East Bay and her Master of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting from California State University, Long Beach. She is currently Assistant Professorof of Art at California State University, Stanislaus where she teaches drawing and painting. Visit her website to learn more: http://mirabelwigon.com/

CONVERSATION