Opening Reception: Devils in the Details

GearBox Gallery
Devils in the Details
Featuring: Harry Clewans and Shenny Cruces
Dates: July 5 to August 3
Artists Reception: Saturday, July 13, 1-4pm

770 West Grand Ave, Oakland, CA 94612
Contact: [email protected]

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(510) 271-0822
Gallery Hours: Thursdays-Saturdays, 12-5 pm and First Fridays, 5-8 pm

Gearbox Gallery is proud to present Devils in the Details, a new exhibition by Gearbox member artist Harry Clewans and guest artist Shenny Cruces. Clewans creates large-scale compositions on panels from hundreds of individual pieces of his own woodcut prints. The prints are arranged to create complex scenes that communicate a state of disrepair or decay. Cruces’ work derives from the process of collecting existing porcelain objects, re-casting and combining them into new sculptural forms. The resulting sculptures evoke a sense of home and memory and examine the meaning of objects in our lives. Both using the strategy of piecing together to create something new, Clewans and Cruces’ work beckons the viewer from afar then rewards one with an intimate intricacy.

About the artists:
For thirty years, Harry Clewans has been making woodcuts of found objects like these and has built up an extensive library of images from which he makes prints that he cuts up and arranges to create larger and more complex compositions. Like mosaics or jigsaw puzzles, these larger works are typically comprised of hundreds of individual pieces that he fits together to form a picture, which he then adheres to a wood substrate. Just as everything in our physical environment is composed of the same matter, Harry’s large pieces are composed of the same collection of woodcut images. This approach, he hopes, communicates the idea that all things, by virtue of their makeup, are connected, and that all things participate in a cycle of composition and decomposition in which the old, the broken down, and the disposed of become material for the new.
Shenny Cruces received a BA in Ceramics from Illinois State University and Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics from San Francisco State University. Her work has appeared in shows nationally and internationally and includes NCECA Biennial at Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Monumental Clay at Palo Alto Art Center, and at CRETA Rome. Her work has received numerous awards and residencies including Murphy Cadogan Fellowship from San Francisco Foundation, and a Kiln God Award Residency at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Pentaculum at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, and summer residency at CRETA Rome, Italy. Ms. Cruces lives in Sacramento and is currently a Professor of Art and Ceramics at San Joaquin Delta College.