This Saturday, in an industrial park in Oceanside, new arts space Techne Art Center debuts an expansive and complex collection of work. Afterburner brings together seven local and four New York artists pushing the boundaries of their materials. The show includes wild and eruptive new pieces from Jon Elliott, Jack Henry, Robin Kang, Dave Kinsey, Jason Clay Lewis, John Oliver Lewis, Mônica Lóss, Jessica McCambly, Tim Murdoch, Sasha Koozel Reibstein, and Allison Renshaw.
“[The exhibition is like] pilots testing the sound barrier of Mach 1 […] pushing into the unknown,” says artist Jason Clay Lewis. The show is a feast of sensory engagement, featuring sculptures that inspire touch fantasies, paintings that creep into the third dimension, and fabric pieces that wrap the viewer’s experience in silk and netting. Within every work, details anticipate their moment of reveal.
Although it is a large group show, artists do not have to fight for their limelight. Each piece feels perfectly positioned, the space curated into zones of understanding and energy that create room for thoughtful and purposeful experience.
The show is, in many ways, similar to the gallery that hosts it. Techne Art Center is quickly making a name for itself in the contemporary art world. The space expands inwardly, offering art like Mary Poppins pulling magic out of her capacious bag. It includes many smaller rooms, which offer artists the opportunity to install expansive work and create a treasure-hunt experience for viewers. Around every turn, new art greets you and pulls you in.
In one of those rooms, an installation piece by Tim Murdoch turns the space into a surreal echo of local ecology; it is quiet, mysterious, and meditative. Murdoch’s work not only transforms the room, it also showcases his masterful ability to transform the materials he is using. A simple but powerful color palette and attention to balance and shadows transfigure familiar wood into something entirely new. “I really like spaces like this because there’s freedom to explore new things and show work that is challenging,” Murdoch says.
Prominent San Diego ceramic artist Sasha Koozel Reibstein has taken up the same call. Her work Antivenom stands tall in the main space, drawing attention with offshooting, open-mouthed snake heads; anthropomorphic petals; unexpected textures; and loud colors.
Murdoch and Reibstein’s pieces resonate so strongly at Techne because it is surrounded by work from artists who are all pushing towards their own version of Mach 1. As a whole, the show boldly requests the viewer set aside everything they know and expect from certain materials. In exchange, it offers radioactive painted ceramics, massive circuit boards woven from fabric, and paintings that deal purely in deception and distortion.
Artist and Techne founder Charles Thomas says his goal for opening his space was to “show work that is so good, people have to come out.”
In Afterburner, he has succeeded. His careful curatorial approach has produced an imperative body of work.
Afterburner opens at Techne Art Center (1609 Ord Way, Oceanside, CA 92056) on Saturday, April 27, from 5 to 8 p.m.
