Exhibit Explores Multi-Cultural Influences Of Two Los Angeles Ceramic Artists

“Forth and Back: The Migration of Influence in the Work of Phyllis Green and Karen Koblitz,” will opened on March 17 in the University Art Gallery and continues through April 22. An exhibition featuring 30 works of art by prominent Los Angeles ceramic artists Phyllis Green and Karen Koblitz and curated by Jim Keville, assistant professor of art at California State University, Dominguez Hills, “Forth and Back” explores the variety of world cultures that inspire these two artists and those influences help form their individual artistic expressions.

In Phyllis Green’s mixed media pieces, Pre-Columbian ceramic and Asian influences are evident, as her art explores issues of gender and identity, “high art,” and craft. Although clay has been a primary art material for Green, she incorporates fabric, found furniture and video into her provocative sculptures.

The work of Karen Koblitz displays influences from Italian Renaissance maiolica ceramics, as well as the impact Islamic Moorish craftsmen had on Italian design. Her travels to Azerbaijan in 2006 further influenced her more recent artwork in ceramics and textile designs, incorporating imagery and symbols of her native California. Her work celebrates the positive interaction between Eastern and Western cultures.

An opening reception for the artists took place on March 17 in the University Art Gallery with a conversation with the artists led by curator Jim Keville.

Free to the public, the exhibition and related events are sponsored by the Instructionally Related Activities Committee of the Associated Students, Inc.

Open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday, the University Art Gallery is located in room A-107 on the first floor of LaCorte Hall. The gallery will be dark March 30-April 4 during Spring Break. For more information, contact (310) 243-3334.

For more on the artists visit their Websites: www.karenkoblitz.com and www.phyllisgreen.net.

- Kathy Zimmerer and Jim Keville

Photos above:

Phyllis Green
Chinese Peruvian Orange, 2007

Karen Koblitz
Nino has Laughing Eyes, 2007

Phyllis Green
Blue Sympathy, 1996