OCEANSIDE — The Oceanside Museum of Art “Night Odyssey” event brought together featured landscape paintings of William Glen Crooks with a night of new media light work, music and art demonstrations.
The themes of light and point of view that are central to Crooks’ paintings were also captured in a bombardment of stimulating light work, music, dance demonstrations, artwork and painting demonstrations.
“It has all the elements of a great party and more than that we’re creating accessibility to art in the museum,” Danielle Susalla Deery, Oceanside Museum of Art director of exhibits and communications, said. “We’re different than a lot of other museums. We bring art to people in new creative ways.”
The first image that struck viewers was “Hologram Project Projection” by Ela Boyd that illuminated the outside wall of the museum. One camera projected multiple layered images that were captured by filming through the museum’s front window. A second camera projected a black and white live feed of event-goers. The museum building became an integral part of the installation.
“It’s the window’s point of view,” Boyd said.
Another light display showed 3D mapping by artist and deejay Giancarlo Loverde. “Trifecta” consists of three 3-foot pyramids that display changing geographic shapes. “Holographic Art” shows virtual holographic images inside an 18-inch pyramid. Loverde said he has a strong respect for the strength and energy of pyramids and frequently uses pyramid shapes in his 3D mapping designs.
Also on display was David Ghilarducci’s kinetic sculpture “Circle of Complication.” The new media sculpture resembles a giant electronic Etch-A-Sketch. Ghilarducci said the point of the artwork is to draw in viewers and lead them to consider how their own childhood play compares to electronic toys children play with today. It is also for viewers’ enjoyment, he added.
“If they think it’s fun to watch that’s enough,” Ghilarducci said.
The collective art display “LED Custom Deck Artists” by StarLit Music and Apparel used skateboard decks as the surface for painters to express their point of view. Images ranged from traditional landscapes, to comic book graphics and dark gothic images.
“It’s a really cool diversity of different styles,” said Travis Luckhurst, a painter and tattoo artist who painted two of the skateboard decks.
Event-goers could express themselves through art by helping to create an interactive mural organized by Phyllis Swanson of The New Village Arts Foundry Studios. Craft tables were set up with hot glue guns, fabric swatches, sequins and markers for participants to decorate 4-inch-by-4-inch squares. The squares became part of four murals spread out on four panels. A black line on each square connected the squares in a cohesive design once they were put in place according to their number.
“It’s fun to watch it evolve,” Swanson said.
Oceanside Museum of Art will hold its next Art After Dark event, Pirates Ashore, on March 30.
For more information, visit oma-online.org.
