The works of two 海角社区 faculty artists are featured in two new Southern California exhibitions that opened this month.
, the first survey of the paintings of Linda Besemer, Occidental鈥檚 James Irvine Distinguished Professor of Art and Art History, opened February 12 at Cal State Long Beach鈥檚 Carolyn Campagna Kleefled Contemporary Art Museum. The show in the museum鈥檚 Main Gallery will run through June 25.
, a four-artist show that includes the work of Mary Beth Heffernan, professor of art and art history at Occidental, also opened February 12 at Tiger Strikes Asteroid鈥檚 gallery in Los Angeles鈥 Fashion District. Cosmic Trace will run through March 5.
Besemer, an American abstract painter celebrated for their stunning, optical works that upend commonly held notions of what makes a painting, has taught and painted at Occidental since 1987. Featuring almost two dozen works from 1993-2021, the exhibition showcases key moments in their career, tracing the evolution of their practice from early traditional gestural abstraction, exploring their 鈥渄etachables鈥 works, and culminating with their most recent glitch series. The show also delves into Besemer鈥檚 process through a collection of the artist鈥檚 maquettes, annotated drawings, and gouache color studies.
Besemer, whose work was featured in the 2000 Whitney Biennial Exhibition and exhibited at The Corcoran Gallery of Art, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art and other major venues, is also the recipient of Occidental鈥檚 Graham L. Sterling Memorial Award, the College鈥檚 top honor for professional achievement.
In Cosmic Trace, Heffernan explores questions of physicality and representation in her exquisite photograms, observing 鈥渓ike the photograph itself, cremains are an alchemic state suspended between presence and absence.鈥 To create a series of performative drawings called 鈥淎shes,鈥 Heffernan 鈥渄rew鈥 around the body of her fellow Art Professor Amy Lyford, who was lying on large sheets of photographic paper, with Lyford鈥檚 mother鈥檚 cremains.
Once the drawing was complete, the paper was exposed to light. In this way, the work became a record not only of the performative act of drawing with 鈥渁shes,鈥 but also a record of the relationship between presence and absence of the body of the living person and their deceased mother.
Heffernan has taught at Occidental since 2002. In 2019 her internationally lauded PPE Portrait Project was put on permanent exhibit at the Welcome Collection in London. Heffernan鈥檚 art is included in numerous private and public collections, including The Huntington Library, the Hammer Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the New York City Library.
