CRAIG DEINES surveys the artist's series of flat-relief carved wood panels. Referring to the carved marks as "brush strokes" and the surface as "vital material," the artist approaches the sculptural works with a painterly sensibility, emphasizing their organic material, and infusing each work with a sense of life and growth. Reflecting surreal vistas, the works incorporate a focused index of visual iconography, in particular the recurring graphic novel/cartoon trope of the "thought bubble." The structures are used to imply semiotics, ideas, dreams, desires, or our hidden potential; though most are left blank, reflecting the human impulse to inscribe meaning within the void.
Includes an introduction by Fatemeh Burnes, artist, Director & Curator of Exhibitions at Mt. San Antonio College, and an essay by Peter Frank, Senior Curator at the Riverside Art Museum and art critic for The Huffington Post, LA Weekly, The Village Voice, Angeleno Magazine, Vision Arts Quarterly, and many other publications.
About Craig Deines
Craig Deines was born in 1962 in San Rafael, California and currently lives and works in Southern California. He attended college at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington and received his M.F.A. in Sculpture in 1989. Since 1991, Deines has served as professor of drawing, sculpture, ceramics, and 3D design at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, California.
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