Gavilan College Art Gallery
- Upcoming Art Exhibitions in the Gavilan College Library Art Gallery (Gilroy Campus):
Spring 2024 Semester Exhibition Featured Artist: Ian Pines
The next art exhibition for Ian Pines will be installed in the Gavilan College Library Building Art Gallery (Gilroy Campus) in late March 2024.
Painting and teaching keeps abstract artist Ian Pines extremely busy most days.
“My paintings are brutishly personal, intuitive, and psychological,” he explains. “They are rapidly metamorphosing mirrors of primordial oil. Yet out of the glut of paint on canvas emerges much that contains artistic, anthropological, and cosmological significance.”
Pines has taught painting, drawing, design, color and art theory at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo since 2017. He also has instructed creative disciplines, ranging from digital photography to sculpture, at numerous educational institutions across the state. His small and large canvases have been widely exhibited in California and New Mexico.
Laboring with abstraction, Pines employs compounded expressionistic brushstrokes. He continually churns up and reuses his paint, working and reworking the painting surface.
“Most of my most successful paintings have required not giving up on them after months or years of work. When it seems completely hopeless, I will usually introduce some seemingly rash and large-scale application or removal of paint that will hopefully result in an unforeseen cohesion in the whole image that I can work with.
“I’ve only once given up on a painting. I then cut that canvas up and used sections of it on other works—so not completely giving up on it,” he recalls. “I guess I probably haven’t learned when to give up and when not to.”
The artist explains that with many of his oily excavations, he’s striving to juxtapose and violently merge three elements that work at varying speeds on earth -- the slow geologic element of rocks and minerals (rocky, eroded, and stratified surfaces), the animal and human element of relatively primal existence (fleshy pinks and reds), and the technological element of quick advancement (metallic surfaces, ores, and inorganic shapes).
“Along with my tenacity and my works’ authenticity, my family and friends have been invaluable in my professional advancement. This advancement was not easy, but I feel very fortunate on multiple levels to be doing what I’m doing.”
Pines earned his Master of Fine Arts in painting and drawing from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2010.
- Most recent past Art Exhibition in the Gavilan College Library Art Gallery (Gilroy Campus):
Scott Downs
(Above Image: A classroom demonstration art piece by Scott Downs entitled “Don’t Bug Me!”.)
An Art Gallery Exhibition Reception was held for Scott Downs on Nov. 21, 2023 at 1pm in the Gavilan College Library Building Art Gallery.
“Due to my busy teaching and coaching schedule, while also raising my family, I was unable to devote much time to my own work beyond classroom painting and drawing demonstrations,” says artist Scott Downs. “Though some of those demonstrations were juried into shows and some have been purchased.”
Downs spent more than three decades as a sports coach and as a high-school art instructor, including 23 years as the Art Department Chair at Los Gatos High School. During those years he judged numerous art shows and served as a guest instructor at several educational institutions.
Since retiring in 2013 and moving with his wife to Gilroy, “I have finally been able to enjoy the process of drawing, painting, showing and selling my work,” he says. His subject matter centers around landscape, seascape, still life and the human figure in both rest and action.
“I work primarily in oils, acrylics, and watercolor, but I do have a number of pieces in pen and ink, pencil, conte’ and intaglio etching. I have also painted sports themes and designed numerous T-shirts, as well as a children’s book, which is in the process of being published.”
The seasoned artist now serves as the vice president for the Gilroy Arts Alliance, the nonprofit that operates the Gilroy Center for the Arts. Utilizing his background in education, Downs wants to get more students involved in art. He is working on creating synergy between local schools and the center to highlight student artwork, while expanding the number of art classes offered at the location.
“Our vision here is to make this a hub,” he says. “This is a wonderfully creative community.”
Downs graduated from San Diego State University with a degree in fine arts with an emphasis on painting and printmaking.
On the Los Gatos High School website, his abbreviated biography reads: "The accomplishments of Scott's art students his athletes and athletic teams attest to his commitment to education and his exceptional talent as a teacher, mentor, manager and leader."
For more information on the Gavilan College Library Building Art Gallery and Future/Current/Past Art Exhibitions, please contact:
John Dorrance: dorrance.communications@gmail.com & 408-427-2543.
John is a local artist and student at Gavilan College. He is currently enrolled in the gallery assistance course at Gavilan and he helps update this art gallery webpage. He writes copy and compiles images for current, past, and future art shows at Gavilan College (Spring Semster 2024).