Rocks is a collaborative exhibition by two Southern California artists. It features ceramic works by Brad Eberhard and oil paintings by Robert Gunderman. The exhibition is open now for viewing from Monday to Thursday, 10 am – 4 pm, through March 20th at the San Jacinto Campus Art Gallery.
Brad Eberhard is a painter who produces detailed and abstract works but has immersed himself in ceramics for the past three years. The opening of Rocks was delayed as he recently lost his art gallery, Alto Beta, and many of his ceramic works to the Eaton Fire. Despite the devastating setback, Eberhard pieced together a new collection, detailing, “A few of these pieces are rehabilitated or rescued from the ashes, and others I grabbed from friends or other places.” One reworked sculpture even features some of his wife’s puzzle pieces. He describes half of his collection as “totem-like” and representing “a nameable thing, like an ape or a bird,” while the other half are “more abstract improvisations, simple or primitive architecture.”
Robert Gunderman is a painter who often focuses on landscapes and is inspired by life on his ranch and working on his farm. His three largest paintings in this exhibition have been dormant in his studio for years, their purpose unclear. Initially dismissed as underpaintings, they have now found their home in Rocks. He compared this process to farming, explaining, “I might be pruning trees today and hoping in the springtime I’m gonna get flowers; in the summer, there’ll be some fruits set, and they’ll make it through the hot season. There’s all of this work that you do today that’s ultimately leading to, hopefully, a crop of avocados.”
Eberhard’s personal favorite piece in this exhibit is one of Gunderman’s paintings pictured above, which expresses how “It’s complex, it’s inscrutable, it doesn’t turn into something for me.” He praised the colors, space, transparency, and touch as impressive and distinct for abstract art. Robert Gunderman painted it about three years ago and said that it’s an astronaut. He explained that was inspired by the prospect of “sending somebody to Mars. We’d obviously probably send a robot – but they talk about sending people somewhere. I think they’d pick up a rock and bring a rock back.” I sense something primordial in this piece, a life form spilling over. Come visit Rocks at the MSJC Art Gallery and discover what you see.
Eberhard’s work can currently be seen at guest spaces in the Ruth Gallery in Pasadena and the upcoming Post-Fair in Santa Monica; Gunderman’s paintings will soon be featured in the Wilding Cran Gallery in Los Angeles.
