Join us on April 14th from 1-3pm at the Old Mission Santa Barbara on 2201 Laguna Street to draw with local architects and artists, materials provided! We will also be accepting mailed in drawings of the Santa Barbara Courthouse through May 17, 2024. See additional information below.
March 23 – May 18, 2024
The Architectural Foundation Gallery
The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to announce RUTH LEAF, Printmaker (1923-2015): Selected Works, an exhibition of etchings and woodcuts inspired by nature. Ruth Leaf’s granddaughters, Mia Casino and Becky Waitz, are honored to present prints from their personal collection for this exhibition.
The Opening Reception was held at The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara on Saturday, March 23.
Ruth Leaf was born in New York City and dedicated her life to printmaking, creating groundbreaking and diverse art from her teen years until her death at the age of 92. Her early works were etchings, linocuts, and woodcuts depicting landscapes and people. Artist/Teacher Paul Margin commented that she was “able to create an atmosphere of anticipation, impending action, and the feeling of possible horror” in her work. Leaf earned many awards, including the Purchase Award of the Library of Congress for her etching, “Tears.”
After Leaf moved to Venice, CA in 1998, she experimented with monoprints, papermaking, metal sculpture, and digital art.
In addition to success as an artist with many U.S. and international solo shows and art in numerous permanent collections, Leaf was a notable teacher and author. She believed that teaching extended her creativity and allowed her to stretch her knowledge and to problem solve. Her book, “Intaglio Printmaking Techniques” (Watson-Guptill, 1976 and Dover softcover, 1984), became an essential manual for printmakers across the U.S. and is used widely today.
Images shown:
Red Flowers
Phantasia
Meet past Scholarship Recipients here.
January 13 – March 9, 2024
The Architectural Foundation Gallery
The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to announce the opening of UNCOMMON GROUND, an exhibition of paintings and collages by Scott Johnson. An opening reception will be held at the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara on Friday, January 12, from 5-7 pm. Johnson will present an Artist Talk on February 10th at 2 pm.
Johnson is the Founding Design Partner of Johnson Fain, an international, award-winning architecture, urban design + planning, and interiors firm based in Los Angeles, and a long-time mixed-media artist. His paintings and collages chronicle his interest in the interplay between rational thinking and intuition, which translates to a visual dialogue between geometric forms and free forms, between logical pre-planning and invention and spontaneity. Added to the mix are familiar elements from our current media landscape in conversation with more personal, inscrutable ones.
The artistic persona of this multi-talented architect blossomed during the Covid months as he layered fragments of photographs, snippets of text, acrylic paint, and oil stick atop one another to create depth and texture and to bury certain meanings while allowing others to emerge. The process is both additive and subtractive, reminiscent of the evolution of cities such as Rome, Tokyo, and New York, and a fitting source of his unique artistic energy and renewal.
Johnson states: I always seem to be drawn to a process of positioning one thing against another as a way to build tension in the artwork. Life offers us a universe of choices and we constantly navigate between differences, the outcome of which is our work and who we are. In many ways, it’s an exploration of self.
Scott Johnson attended Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. He is a past President of the AIA Los Angeles chapter, the past Director of the Master of Architecture Programs at USC and the author of numerous books including Uncommon Ground: Notes on the Visual Arts + Architecture (2021) and Inside Art (2023). In 2018, Johnson was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome. He currently divides his time between Los Angeles and New York City and exhibits his artworks regularly.
The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara office and gallery are based in the historic Acheson House at the corner of Garden and East Victoria Streets in Santa Barbara. Gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and by appointment.
All Images shown:
Black + Gray Works on Paper
23″x28″
Acrylic and sand on paper
September 9 – November 4, 2023
The Architectural Foundation Gallery
The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to announce Portals, a solo exhibition of two- and three-dimensional works by Sommer Roman.
Portals is a solo exhibition that brings together various works from three different threads of Sommer Roman’s larger body of work: new textile-based wall sculptures and “Brain Scan” colored pencil drawings are paired with “Cell Portrait” ink drawings. This grouping of work sheds light on themes and forms that appear and reappear in Roman’s work repeatedly: namely, the biological cross-section and the circle.
In bringing these threads of her work together, Roman re-examines and re-envisions them as portals, portals that draw us into places of deep knowing and innate wildness within ourselves. Through evocative color, organic forms, materiality, and the universal circular form these unique, multifarious configurations invite viewers back to the realm of interconnectedness, playfulness, the wild feminine, and the body as potent sites of knowing and knowledge.
Sommer Roman was born and raised in California and has lived in France and on both East and West Coasts of the US. She received her BA from UC Santa Cruz (2004) and her MFA from UC Santa Barbara (2014). Roman maintains a multi-disciplinary art practice and exhibits regularly in group and solo exhibitions. She currently lives on the Central Coast of California with her two children and teaches in the Art Departments at Cuesta College and Cal Poly.
The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara office and gallery are based in the historic Acheson House at the corner of Garden and East Victoria Streets in Santa Barbara. Gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and by appointment.
Images shown:
Internal Portal II
8″x8″x3″
Post-consumer clothing, paper clay
Brain Scan A
22″x30″
Colored pencil on pape
June 3 – August 12, 2023
The Architectural Foundation Gallery
Opening Reception with the Artist
Friday evening June 2, 2023 from 5-7 p.m.
The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition, A Natural Curiosity, a solo exhibition of oil paintings by Nadya Brown.
An opening reception will be held at the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara on Friday evening, June 2nd from 5-7 p.m.
In this series of lush paintings, Nadya Brown creates illusory, imaginary three-dimensional spaces that entice viewers to enter, explore, and examine closely. Through realistic drawing and highly saturated colors, these highly original depictions of decorative objects, flowers, birds, domestic spaces, and landscapes (often combined in a single painting) evoke time, light, and memory in a slightly surreal manner. Brown’s travels in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Mexico, plus living and working in different cultures provided much of the inspiration.
“As subject matter, I often use objects that I own, that I have seen in museums and on my travels or photographs I have taken for specific information. This information is imported and combined in my paintings to create geometrical and aesthetic compositions.”
Brown’s work is both a celebration of nature and of civilization. An example is her large triptych, Simonetta’s Library: A Brief History of Nature, a project completed over a year’s time during the pandemic. Brown states her concerns: “As questions arise about climate change, and consequently drastic changes to our land and marine environment, I focus on nature as subject matter and what it has to offer, and also how it is abused; these are issues that have gradually entered into my work.”
Nadya Brown was born and raised in England. She has since lived in Italy and Spain and now, Santa Barbara, California. After studies in Painting and Printmaking at Goldsmiths College, University of London, she received her MFA from Ohio University. She has exhibited her work extensively in solo and group shows both in the United States and the UK and she has taught at numerous universities and colleges in the U.S.
The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara office and gallery are based in the historic Acheson House at the corner of Garden and East Victoria Streets in Santa Barbara. Gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and by appointment.
Images shown:
Simonetta’s Library
48″x72″ Oil on canvas
Triptych
View of the Mountain with Tulips
20″x30″ Oil on canvas
March 25 – May 20, 2023
The Architectural Foundation Gallery
Opening Reception with the Artist
Saturday afternoon March 25, 2023 from 1-3 p.m.
The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition, Natural Interpretations, a solo exhibition of acrylic and gouache paintings by Holly Hungett.
An opening reception will be held at the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara on Saturday afternoon, March 25th from 1-3 p.m.
In this series of semi-abstract landscapes, Hungett works within self-imposed constraints—limited colors, or monochromatic and muted palettes. Her work relies on strong compositional structure. Painting primarily on location, Holly relies on her connection to the environment for inspiration. She reduces the number of shapes and eliminates extraneous details to create engaging and calming images. For the viewer, these paintings offer a moment of respite from our overstimulated world. The influence of Holly’s yoga and meditation practice of over thirty years is evident in this work.
Noted Santa Barbara artist and teacher Libby Smith, comments: “Holly Hungett is a painter who likes to experiment. She changes media, subject matter, points of view, and pushes personal boundaries. I like that.”
Garrett Speirs, another revered Santa Barbara artist and teacher, adds: “Holly Hungett’s work is a wonderful balance between the specific and the general. Her work captures the essence of her subject without feeling overly beholden to her topic. Her color palette is both rich and subtle.”
An active member of Southern California Artist Painting for the Environment (SCAPE), The Goleta Valley Art Association (GVAA), and The Abstract Art Collective (AAC), Holly has participated in group and solo exhibitions since 2003. Her works enrich private collections in California, Washington, South Carolina, Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Poland, and Australia. Holly received her BFA from the Maine School of Art in Portland, Maine (1981) and her MFA from UCSB (1987). Starting in (1995) she taught Yoga at SBCC’s Adult Education program for 25 years.
The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara office and gallery are based in the historic Acheson House at the corner of Garden and East Victoria Streets in Santa Barbara. Gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and by appointment.
Images shown:
Solar Variation
8″x10″ Acrylic on Panel
Confetti Fields
6″x6″ Acrylic on Birch Panel
New Date February 25, 2023 at 2pm
The Architectural Foundation Gallery
NEW DATE: February 25, 2023, 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.
The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to present an artist talk by Mayela Rodriguez on her exhibition Veins: Mining Family History Through Copper.
Join Mayela Rodriguez to hear how explorations of her family history led her to create her exhibition of photography, video, text, and installation art. She grew up hearing mysterious stories about a distant uncle, Aurelio Rodriguez, who lived in Cananea, Mexico and loved to pitch rocks into the Buenvavista del Cobre mine nearby. Later in life, this uncle became a professional baseball player for the Detroit Tigers. Her curiosity about Aurelio set her on a lengthy path to explore her own evolving identity through the lens of copper – “mining” her questions, thoughts, and insecurities about being a Mexican American.
Due to limited outdoor seating, reservations are required: 805.965.6307 or molly@nullafsb.org. Santa Barbara County Covid guidelines will be followed.
The Architectural Foundation Gallery is located at 229 East Victoria Street, Santa Barbara at the corner of Victoria and Garden streets.
Gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and by appointment.
Click here for the Voice Magazine article
Images shown:
Current exhibition installation: Metaled Ghosts & photographs
Artist’s collection of Aurelio Rodriguez professional baseball ca
January 14 – March 11, 2023
The Architectural Foundation Gallery
The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to present the exhibition, Veins: Mining Family History Through Copper, a solo exhibition of photography, video, text, and installation art by Mayela Rodriguez.
The exhibition expands upon Rodriguez’s prior explorations of her lineage and her father’s family, whose members are from Cananea, Mexico where the Buenvavista del Cobre mine is located. For this exhibition, she uses the theme of copper as a lens into her own evolving identity.
In 2017, when Rodriguez was an MFA student at the University of Michigan, she wrote to the Buenavista del Cobre mine requesting information about her distant uncle, Aurelio Rodriguez. She had grown up hearing intriguing stories about this uncle who, allegedly, pitched rocks into the mine as a child and later in life became a professional baseball player for the Detroit Tigers. After many months, Rodriguez received a package from the Buenavista del Cobre mine that contained a 13″ x 18″ sheet of copper wrapped in plastic.
Carrying the copper with her, Rodriguez then embarked on an ambitious pilgrimage to sites that she and her family have called home. She explains “I was interested in discovering what it meant to simply exist with my copper. How could our pilgrimage both transform it and me? By developing a relationship with my copper in this way, I realized that the copper was not just a slab of metal excavated from the depths of Mexican earth but a vessel to hold all my concentrated questions, thoughts, and insecurities about my identity as a Mexican American.”
Veins: Mining Family History Through Copper expands on recent work by contemporary artists who use globally traded commodities as visual metaphors for ways that personal identity inhabits and is shaped by sociopolitical contexts: Minerva Cuevas, Kara Walker, and Minga Opazo whose AFSB exhibition, Siempre Más/Always More (2020), featured weavings and textiles made of found and recycled clothing.
Mayela Rodriguez is an artist and educator who positions art as a collective, inclusive, and healing process. By facilitating the production of community-made collections, she seeks to remind participants and students of the inherent power of their creative voices in making change. Most recently, Rodriguez has worked on collaborative projects with Latinx communities in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor in Michigan and New Cuyama and Santa Barbara in California. Rodriguez received her BA from UC Berkeley (2015) and MFA from University of Michigan (2019). Rodriguez was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California. (mayelarodriguez.com)
An Artist Talk will be held at the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara on Saturday afternoon, February 11th from 2-3 p.m.
Gallery hours are Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. and by appointment.
Images shown:
Copper from the Buenavista del Cobre mine
Artist’s collection of Aurelio Rodriguez professional baseball car