Sentry
Large Scale Drawings by Joe Biel
Sweeney Art Gallery
December 21, 2013 - March 22, 2014
Reception | Saturday, February 1, 2014, 6pm - 9pm |
UCR ARTSblock presents Sentry: Works by Joe Biel, a solo museum exhibition featuring a series of large-scale, two-dimensional drawings on paper and a monumental drawing installation specifically produced for the Culver Center of the Arts. Working primarily with watercolor, graphite and colored pencils, Biel's figurative drawings are loosely composed in panoramic landscapes with latent narratives that tamper with the complexity and irony of human existence. In addition to the works on paper, visitors of the museum will be able to view Biel's new work in progress- a site-specific drawing that will encompass the grand atrium walls of the Culver Center. This large-scale installation drawing, Sentry, will be completed by the opening date of the exhibition on December 21, 2013.
Joe Biel received an MFA in Painting from the University of Michigan and is currently on the faculty as Associate Professor in Studio Art at California State University, Fullerton. His work has been exhibited in galleries nationally and internationally at LA Louver Gallery, Roberts and Tilton Gallery, Acuna-Hansen Gallery and Angles Gallery in Los Angeles, Goff + Rosenthal Gallery in New York, Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle, and Galerie Kuckei/Kuckei in Berlin. He has been included in group exhibitions at the Otis College of Art and Design and the Torrance Museum of Art in Los Angeles, the De Young Museum in San Francisco, the Laguna Art Museum in Laguna, CA, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT and Diverseworks in Houston, TX. He has been awarded residencies at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, NE, at the 18th St Arts Center in Santa Monica and at the Ballingllen Foundation in Ballycastle, Ireland. He was the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation award in 2003 and in 2008. He lives and works in Los Angeles.
SENTRY: Large Scale Drawings by Joe Biel was organized by UCR ARTSblock and curated by Jennifer Frias, Associate Curator, Sweeney Art Gallery, University of California, Riverside. Support provided by UCR's College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (CHASS), Gluck Fellows Program of the Arts at UC Riverside, University of California Institute of Research for the Arts (UCIRA) and the City of Riverside.
Artist website
http://www.joebiel.com
Image credit line:
Joe Biel, Pax Romana, 2006, watercolor, colored pencil and graphite on paper, courtesy of the artist.
CULVER CENTER OF THE ARTS and SWEENEY ART GALLERY
