UCSB Art Professor Discusses Use of Gravity in Landscape Paintings

While artist Jane Callister's paint-spilled canvases and giant splashed-paint sticker murals stretch the very definition of what a painting is, the impressionistic landscapes she creates reverse the historical approach to abstraction. Beginning with spills, drips, and abstract brushstrokes, the professor and chair of art at UC Santa Barbara manipulates the canvas to create exuberant, alien landscapes that evoke earthly natural disasters while simultaneously appearing to be out of the world.

In a talk titled "Painting With Gravity: Cosmic Lingerie and Beyond," Callister will discuss her painting practice as it has evolved over the past 10 years. She will illustrate her talk with examples from her early poured-paint series, "Cosmic Lingerie," as well as her recent and more widely recognized "Liquid Landscape" paintings and installations.

The presentation will begin at 7:30 p.m. Monday, February 25, at the First Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall at 21 E. Constance Avenue in Santa Barbara. The cost of the lecture is $8 for UCSB Affiliates and Chancellor's Council Members, and $10 for others. Contact the UCSB Office of Community Relations at 893-4388 to register, as space is limited.

Born on the Isle of Man, Callister completed her Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where she studied under the noted art critic Dave Hickey. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally in the United States, Paris, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Her paintings have been featured in a number of books, including "LA Artland" by Chris Kraus, Jan Tumlir, and Jane McFadden (Blackdog Press, 2005); "Abstract Painting: Concepts and Techniques" by Vicky Perry

(Watson-Guptill, 2005); and "Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting" by Barry Schwabsky (Phaidon Press, 2002).

For more information, visit http://www.ia.ucsb.edu/comrel/events.shtml

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