January-March

Public Reception: January 16, 1:00-3:00 p.m.

Art serves many purposes. It can be decorative, calming to those suffering and even bringing sensual pleasure through color and form. Art may be challenging the status quo, playing devil’s advocate or causing someone to think. Some art is so sublime that it incites a sense of wonderment while prompting a mini samadhi or moment of enlightenment. Art can be a crafted skill or link to the collective unconscious. When a student of classical Chinese painting, the rules for Gregg Coffey were simple, as in “follow rules of the natural world.” Just as they produce beauty, divine symmetry and preternatural light, the same rules produce entropy and decay. Art may also act as propaganda, political rhetoric or a call to action. It could be commercial treacle, couch art or matching trendy colors. It may even be a ceramic urinal or miles long running fence, and in some cases, the artist’s art is to choose not to. Or simply, art is a calling. It is a voice calling from the wilderness that requires work and diligence from the beholder.