Exhibition – TIMELY by Joan Rosenberg-Dent and Caroline Kapp

Past Exhibition - TIMELY by Joan Rosenberg-Dent and Caroline Kapp

June 1- August 24, 2024

Opening Reception Friday May 31, 2024 5 – 7 p.m.

The Architectural Foundation Gallery

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to announce the opening of TIMELY, an exhibition of porcelain, mixed media and photography by Joan Rosenberg-Dent and Caroline Kapp. An opening reception will be held at the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara on Friday, May 31, from 5-7 pm. 

The porcelain sculpture of Joan Rosenberg-Dent and the experimental photographs and drawings of Caroline Kapp reflect and correspond with each other in remarkable ways. These artists first met by chance at the Channing Peake Gallery while picking up their work from a previous exhibition. Arriving at the same time in the Gallery, they observed their work hanging side by side and were struck by the strong visual resonances. After exchanging emails, then studio visits, over time they began to shape the idea of a two-person, collaborative exhibition.

“We found conceptual and visual similarities in our past creative works, as well as in our current themes. We were each independently exploring new work related to the concept of time: how time shapes our lives; how we shape the time in our lives; how time can leave visible marks on us and our surroundings. We asked the question: if our past work displays such an uncanny connection, what might future collaborations look like?”

Joan Rosenberg-Dent received her Master of Fine Arts degree at Cranbrook Academy of Art. She has taught at many universities including Pennsylvania State University, University of Michigan, and was Chair person of Ceramics and Glass at Ohio University. She currently serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council, School of Art and Design, at the University of Michigan. Her work is in several permanent museum collections.

Caroline Kapp is a visual artist known for her quietly surreal photographic compositions that combine experimental and digital processes. She studied at Cornish College of the Arts (BFA, Visual Arts) and the University of Washington (MFA, Photomedia). She has exhibited photography and video work nationally and internationally and has been selected as resident fellow at several institutions.

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.

Top Image Shown:

Caroline Kapp
Detail from Ellipse No. 2
Archival inkjet print
2018

Bottom Image Shown:

Joan Rosenberg-Dent
Birth / Infinity
Porcelain
2024

Save the Date – 2024 Scholarship Reception & Awards Ceremony – June 18, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.

Save the Date
2024 Scholarship Reception & Awards Ceremony this June

Join us in honoring the 2024 AFSB Scholarship recipients this upcoming June.
This is a celebration of higher education as we recognize and award Santa Barbara County students pursuing college-level studies in architecture and related fields.
Thank you to the sponsors, members, and volunteers that make this annual event happen.

Meet past Scholarship Recipients here.

Kids Draw Architecture 2024 Sketch Session at Old Mission Santa Barbara – Sunday May 19, 1-3 p.m.

New Date: Kids Draw Architecture (KDA) Sketch Session at the Old Mission Santa Barbara

Sunday May 19, 2024

Join us for on May 19th 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 Old Mission Santa Barbara through June 21, 2024. See additional information below.  

Exhibition – RUTH LEAF, Printmaker (1923 – 2015): Selected Works

Current Exhibition - RUTH LEAF, Printmaker (1923-2015): Selected Works

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.

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:

Red Flowers 
Phantasia

Saturday and Sunday Architectural Walking Tours

Saturday and Sunday Architectural Walking Tours
10:00 am - 12:00 pm

Saturday "Sabado" Tour leaves from the City Hall steps at de la Guerra Plaza

Sunday "Domingo" Tour leaves from Anapamu St. across from the Public Library

Learn about the Lobero Theatre on the Saturday "Sabado" Walking Tour.

Learn about the Bank & Trust Building on the Sunday “Domingo” Walking Tour. 
Click here for more information on the Walking Tours.

Exhibition – UNCOMMON GROUND by Scott Johnson

Current Exhibition - UNCOMMON GROUND by Scott Johnson

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 

Exhibition – PORTALS by Sommer Roman

Exhibition - Portals by Sommer Roman

September 9 – November 4, 2023 

The Architectural Foundation Gallery

Opening Reception with the Artist

Friday evening September 8, 2023 from 5-7 p.m.

The Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara is pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition, Portals, a solo exhibition of two- and three-dimensional work by Sommer Roman. 

An opening reception will be held at the Architectural Foundation of Santa Barbara on Friday evening, September 8th from 5-7 p.m. 

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, 2022
8″x8″x3″ Post-consumer clothing, paper clay

Brain Scan A, 2023 
22″x30″ Colored pencil on canvas

We are Here to Self Reflect, 2022 
22″x39″x7.5″ Fabric, paper clay, acrylic paint, mirror

Exhibition – Sommer Roman: Portals

Exhibition - Sommer Roman: Portals

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

Exhibition – A NATURAL CURIOSITY by Nadya Brown

Exhibition - A Natural Curiosity by Nadya Brown

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