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The premiere exhibition "Spiritus Mundi", a
group show of work by national and international artists was staged
in conjunction with the second annual San Francisco International
Arts Festival. The show was received with critical acclaim including
laudatory reviews in Artweek magazine and The Korea Times.
"Spiritus Mundi", said director
Claire McGovern, "investigates how artists immerse
themselves within the experience of nature itself in order
to express the language and meaning of natural phenomena
in art". Not only did the show explore the synthesis
of nature and artistic creativity, it represented the shifting
evanescent borderline between what constitutes art and
our natural environment.
Korean artist Youn Woo Chaa creates astonishingly masterful
portraits by weaving different shades of the natural fiber
rattan reed to create the contours and shadows of a face.
Painter Ian Sheldon is profoundly influenced by
the prairie landscapes of the Western Canadian wilderness
and excels in the depiction of tempestuous, dark and turbulent
skies. His work emphasizes the sheer power, force and
beauty of nature. Living plant sculptures by Francis Baker
addressed the struggle for growth and human desire for personal
sovereignty.
Spiritus Mundi also featured several "living green"
installations by Joe Mangrum, Susan Kennedy and John Eric
Otter. Slow motion videos by Victor Barbieri revealed a
compelling and deep appreciation of human nature with
all its complexities, contradictions, failures and triumphs.
Not only did a moss covered telephone among other sculptures
by Claire McGovern connote an absurdist value, the living
green evokes a pure and untainted organic sense of how
all man made things must ultimately return to the earth.
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