A new art exhibit is on display at the El Camino Art Gallery and will be open until Thursday, April 27.
“Wild Biology” by Margaret Lazzari, is the current art exhibit in the EC Art Gallery. It is a survey of the past 20 years of Lazzari’s work, and includes both representational and abstract pieces.
This exhibit is one of the six exhibits that the Art Gallery holds each academic year.”
“It’s a rare opportunity that one is able to see a mid-career survey of work from an artist that spans over such a period,” Susanna Meiers, director and curator of the Art Gallery, said.
In regards to her body of work, Lazzari said that she’s always had a strong attachment to nature..”
“It’s not just nature in the abstract, but people in nature. I think that comes from gardening,” she said. “I really want to connect people back to nature.”
“Wild Biology” is comprised of layered abstractions made from acyrlic on canvas.
“It’s really fascinating to get a glimpse of that,” Meiers said. “She really know how to move paint.”
One EC student said she enjoyed the art gallery due to the variety of paintings being showcased.
“I really like the charcoal drawings the most, the ones around the corner,” Gabriella Imal, 18, nursing major, said.
Lazzari’s work wasn’t always primarily abstract because in the the beginning of her career it was marked by mostly representational pieces. According to Lazzari, it was about 12 years ago when she began to delve into the acrylic medium and begin working on abstract pieces.
This change in medium aligned with a time when she was battling with cancer, thus the “Cancer series” in the exhibit.
“The idea that I could be free enough to just deal with color shape and movement in a more free and abstracted way was really pretty wonderful,” Lazzari said.
Her pieces speak to this. The exhibit itself is grouped into three distinctly different exhibits, the “Wild Biology Series, the “Cancer Series,” and the “Floating Series.”
The “Cancer Series” is based on the concept of “body under assault,” and draws inspiration from the time that Lazzari battled with cancer. The pieces in this series are primarily charcoal and conte drawings.
The “Floating Series” is a group of paintings depicting humans partially submerged in water that is meant to explore the physical and emotional changes one experiences throughout life.
Lazzari hopes viewers at the exhibit will pick up on the theme in her works
“I want (the pieces) to be abstracted and general enough so that people can associate a sense of space and light and the movement of trees and water movement and everything else,” she said in regards to her abstractions. “(Viewers) can really feel those rhythms in the paintings, without being attached to a specific place.”
