VENTURA COLLEGE NEW MEDIA GALLERY EXHIBITION
SHARON COUGHRAN ~ "STICKS AND STONES"
January 20-February 10, 2011
New Media Gallery Hours: Monday-Friday Noon-4 P.M.
Free Admission
Public Opening Reception: Thursday, January 20, 2011, 7-9 P.M.
Sharon Coughran is a mixed media artist whose work is deeply rooted in the narrative as she constructs stories through visual metaphor expressing the human experience of love, loss, and the pursuit of self-awareness. Her work is a dance with intimate and universal themes pulling back the layers of life’s constructive and deconstructive nature. She refers to art history linking her work to the tradition of painting and the role of the female figure defined within it: Venus, the Virgin, and Mother Nature.
Coughran says, "Mother Nature is not the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, nor the Tooth Fairy after all; rather, she is the Indian Giver that invisible culprit that we heard so much about when we were young and still believed that life was fair and that justice prevailed. She is generous, commanding, beautiful, hideous, strikes at will, and demands sacrifice at a moment’s notice. The transitory nature of life demands that we continue to evolve, morph, let go and transform our gains as well as our losses."
It is through these visual puzzles that she finds her equilibrium and examines the reality of truth and what it demands of us. The question is not how do we avoid loss but how can we embrace it? The answer lies within the image, the mysterious, and the unstoppable force we call life.
Coughran is a long-time resident of Ventura and has been a Ventura College Instructor since 2002. She studied art at San Francisco State University and the University of California Santa Barbara where she earned her MFA and later a Degree in Visual Communications in Graphic Arts from UCSB Extension. Her professional life encompasses the exploration of fine art as well as graphic arts making her living in both disciplines. She has exhibited her work throughout the United States and Japan and has exhibited at Bowers Museum, Santa Ana; On Paper Gallery, Tokyo, Japan; Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles; Fat Cat Gallery, New York, Jewish Community Library and Research Center, San Francisco; Nolan Lamonte Films, International Television Group, Los Angeles; Orlando Gallery, Sherman Oaks; California State University, Long Beach; Santa Barbara City College, Atkinson Gallery; University of California, Santa Barbara Art Museum; Finegood Gallery, Los Angeles; Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Park, Los Angeles; SITE, Los Angeles; Downey Museum of Art; Los Angeles City Hall; L.A. International Art Fair; Francine Ellman Gallery, Santa Monica; Ventura County Museum of History and Art; and the Ventura Government Center. |
