ColorLove

David Batchelor · Linda Besemer · Mary Wessel · Jeff Zimmerman

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The exhibition features an installation by London-based artist David Batchelor, paintings by California-based artist Linda Besemer, photographs by local artist Mary Wessel, and works in glass by New York-based artist Jeff Zimmerman. The four participating artists work in different mediums and all have a unifying theme of working in brilliant color and its affect upon us and our everyday life. "Color originates in light. It has energy, heat. Color is sensuous and unstable. It is uncontrollable, wild, undomesticated and not fully understood. It is resistant to language as it pierces the heart," Wessel says in her essay on "color" in the exhibition's gallery guide.

David Batchelor’s installation piece was made from found objects - shelving units and dollies – which have been transformed into a new art piece using Plexiglas and fluorescent light bulbs. Batchelor was born in Dundee, Scotland, and graduated in 1980 with an MA in Cultural Studies from the Centre of Contemporary Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham. In 1978 he earned a BA with Honors in Fine Art from Trent Polytechnic, Nottingham, after taking a Foundation Course at Watford College of Art.

Linda Besemer’s three paintings from the Fold series were painted in acrylics and folded over an aluminum rod. Born in South Bend, Indiana, Besemer received her BA and BFA in 1981 from Indiana University, Bloomington, and her MFA in 1983 from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA. She teaches at Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA.

Mary Wessell includes five large-scale, chromogenic photographs from her series Blindnesses. Wessel earned an MFA in 1992 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; an MA in Sociology in 1976 from the University of Pittsburgh, PA; and a BA in Philosophy and Sociology in 1974 from Rutgers University, Douglass College, New Brunswick, NJ.

Jeff Zimmerman’s 19 glass pieces in biomorphic shapes are white with shades of pink. Zimmerman was pursuing a degree in Anthropology in Santa Barbara, California, when he took his first glass blowing class in 1998. He received a BFA in 1994 from the Appalachian Center for Craft in Tennessee, and he spent summers completing an apprenticeship at the Pilchuk School in Seattle.