Ventura College art exhibit opens

In this exhibition - using the artist Ed Ruscha as a theme and object of fantasy - Alison Van Pelt explores identity, envy, power, self-importance, self-acceptance, humor, and dreams. First sketched on canvas, a detailed portrait is painted by hand in oils, then deconstructed using brushes to achieve a soft, blurred effect. The letters and backgrounds, painted in acrylic and gold and silver leaf, interrupt the fluid, blurry portrait in the foreground and set the picture planes apart.

Alison Van Pelt is a Los Angeles based painter who uses a blurring technique to combine motion painting and photo-realism. She begins with a drawing on the canvas, based primarily on found images, such as historical figures, artists, writers, political and spiritual leaders, pop-culture icons, Native Americans, animals, athletes, and obscure faces and torsos. She builds on her drawing with layers of oil paint, blending to create a textured blurring effect that moves horizontally and/or vertically on the canvas. Viewed closely, the details are deconstructed, breaking down a hyper-realistic painting to a distorted and sometimes abstract image. This technique produces either the streaking effect of motion across the canvas or, like a hologram, the image seems trapped under the paint. Her portraits generate an idolized feeling; they create a sense of longing for a vanishing illusion.