Monterey, CA, June 28, 2018 — The Monterey Museum of Art, as part of its Year of the Woman 2018 at MMA, has announced the opening July 20 of an exhibition of eight women artists’ works curated by Gail Enns and the nonprofit Celadon Arts, “The New Domestics - Finding Beauty in the Mundane.”

Part One, which opens July 20, features installations using doilies, lace, glass, household tools, resistors and capacitors and gives us a taste of more to come. Closing October 28, 2018.

Part Two, which opens Sept. 13, includes an installation using 1,000 French knots made of dyed red rope, another deconstructs kimonos into reverent altar pieces. Both parts of the exhibition run through Oct. 28, 2018. Year of the Woman 2018 is a series of events at MMA focusing on notable women artists of California and the Central Coast. Closing October 28, 2018.

“We are thrilled to have this pivotal exhibition at the museum. It’s exciting to see work that challenges the norm,” said Stuart A. Chase, director of the Monterey Museum of Art. “It really is the first exhibit of this kind here at the museum, and it establishes the museum as one that supports new ideas and the California arts community.”

“The New Domestics” features eight artists, Mitra Fabian, Susan Abbott Martin, Victoria May, Maria Porges, Judy Shintani, Lisa Solomon, Katherine Sherwood and The Temple Sisters, who use media found in domestic situations.

“The artists focus on how stereotypically domestic processes and the use of commonplace household materials can generate art that grapples with larger social and environmental concerns,” said Gail Enns, director of Celadon Arts, who curated the two-part exhibit. “Applying a distinct female perspective, these are powerful statements about the environment, political issues and universal truths within each work.”

The exhibition is composed of more than 80 works of art, including paintings, installations, mixed media work and sculpture, and includes the use of sewing, weaving, knitting, collage and ceramics combined with paint, embroidery floss, lace, thread and other elements that validate and connect these contemporary artists to work done by women artists of the past. Workshops, lectures and special tours of the exhibition with the curator will also be conducted as part of the exhibition.

“They are being creative, but they are doing more than that. They are practicing ‘Creative Disobedience’” wrote Patrick Frank, author of “Artforms: An Introduction to the Visual Arts,” a university textbook now in its 12th edition, in the exhibition catalog. “Their brand of creativity is not submissive or well-mannered or highly tasteful; it has an edge to it. It's insubordinate. It's also very stimulating and appropriate for these times”.

EXHIBITION:
“The New Domestics - Finding Beauty In The Mundane”
Dates: Part One – Coburn and Entry Galleries – July 20-Oct. 28, 2018
Part Two – Work Gallery – Sept. 13-Oct. 28, 2018
Opening Reception: Sept. 20, 2018, 5:30-7 p.m.

Monterey Museum of Art
559 Pacific Street, Monterey, CA 93940
(831) 372-5477
http://www.montereyart.org

CONTACT
[email protected]
831-372-5477 x 101

Contact:
Marci Bracco Cain
Chatterbox PR
Salinas, CA 93901
(831) 747-7455
http://www.montereyart.org