september 2021

Time and Transformation

Bill Hayner and Linda Southwell
Drawings, Paintings and Sculpture

September 4 – 25, 2021

Reception: Saturday, September 4, 6-10pm

360º Tour of the Exhibition


The exhibition “Time and Transformation,” opening September 4th at the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Ana, brings together two artists whose work has taken fascinating twists and turns over the last several decades. Both artists have shown their drawings, paintings and sculptures extensively in galleries and museums around the United States and throughout the world. Hayner, a native Texan, has work in the permanent collections of the University of North Dakota, North Texas State University, the University of Texas at Arlington and Orange County’s own Fullerton College. Southwell has been awarded two international National Endowment for the Humanities awards and has exhibited in Alaska, California, Oregon, and Washington. So, these are obviously two dedicated and accomplished artists. But the question arises, what exactly has brought them together for this event? The answer is: an almost simultaneous recognition, at the height of their careers, that life and art can be viewed as a dynamic, ongoing process of change and transformation, and that this realization itself can inform an artist’s work in profound ways.

 

Hayner’s current work is populated with flowing organic forms that express his fascination with the physical, biological processes of birth, growth and transformation and the relationship those processes have with the passage of time. He describes the work as “an imagined rhizome-based biology, intended to suggest, rather than depict, growing life forms, such as bones, organs or stones, seemingly arrested in a moment of time.” He further explains that… “the work is, at its core, a product of imagination, but it was inspired by a real-life experience. While viewing the sonogram of our baby when her mother was twenty-two weeks and two days pregnant, I felt a renewed sense of awe and amazement with the mysterious, tenacious and continually changing physicality of life. That cathartic moment continues to drive the work forward as I experiment with mixing various media, including graphite, charcoal, colored pencil, paint and installation elements. The work continues to grow and change, as do the very life forms that inspire it.”


Bill Hayner
Detail: “Birth of Obsidian”

 

 

Southwell’s current work is also inspired by a fascination with change that occurs through real time. Two of her sculptures that will be featured in the show, “Offering” and “Refugee,” integrate human forms with other natural elements. In these two elegant works, indigenous figures, representing cultures that have been studied extensively by the artist, appear to emerge from stone or cloud-like forms. The richness of the work is informed directly by her studies of Mayan art and culture from her on-site visitations to Chiapas, Guatemala, Honduras and Belize as well as her explorations into Pre-Columbian Art and culture in Central Mexico.


Linda Southwell “Refugee”


The works of art created by these two artists travel well together, through their expressive, undulating explorations of time and transformation.

The hope is that it will provide a transformative experience for the art-loving visitor as well.

   
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