Third Street Gallery archive: 2014 Exhibitions: The Universe Unfolded: Works by Ananda Oliveri

Humboldt State University First Street Gallery presents, "The Universe Unfolded", an exhibition of art featuring a variety of mixed media works by Ananda Oliveri. The exhibition will run from January 31st through March 2, 2014.

In his most ambitious exhibition to date, "The Universe Unfolded" presents an array of new and recent acrylic pieces as well as mixed-media interactive installations. Oliveri paints on uncommon surfaces such as Plexiglas, mirrors, and the walls themselves. The artist also uses optical effects to literally immerse the viewer into the work. This combination of installation and select works interact with the physical gallery space to encompass the viewer within his art.

The implicit narrative of "The Universe Unfolded" is largely based on the theory of technological singularity, or the Post-Artificial Intelligence world.  This narrative is created artistically through diverse materials and recurrent motifs. Repetition is used in many aspects of this exhibition to create an intersection of random determination and systematic order showing in recurring motifs such as triangles or infinite reflections of mirrors facing one another. 

Ananda Oliveri’s work blends highly conceptual approaches with an urban aesthetic. Using spray paint and large-scale origami, the artist draws from many cultural influences to accompany his narratives of transformation, fate and chaos in our current, and future, globalized world.

Currently working and living on California’s North Coast, Ananda Oliveri has shown in many of Eureka, California’s gallery spaces. He has also shown his works throughout California and nationally. A resourceful artist, gallery owner and curator, he partially funded this collection of work successfully using the fund raising platform, Kickstarter.

There will be a gallery reception for the artist, whichwill take place at HSU First Street Gallery on February 1st from 6-9pm during Eureka’s Arts Alive program. The gallery is open Tuesday through Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. and is located at 422 First Street, Eureka, California. Admission is free. Those planning group tours are encouraged to call ahead. For more information call 707-443-6363.

The artist’s goal often is to create not only a language with which to express one's self but also a realm, which is negotiated by said language. Over the course of creating the work in my current exhibition, The Universe Unfolded, I discovered that my influences and interests, no matter how disparate, had converged to do just that. The further I dove into the narrative I was creating the more I realized that there was nothing that couldn’t be utilized in rounding out my language, my realm.

Sequential art, architecture, cartography, science fiction, origami all had a role to play in the universe I was creating–a role that was cast long before the universe came to be. It is with this realization that I saw the endless possibility of expanding on what started out as a handful of unrelated paintings into a cohesive body each providing a glimmer of the whole.

This understanding echoed the major theme of the work itself–transformation, change, evolution. I have, in a way, been transformed by this realization. I am excited to continue to build upon this, to make my universe more and more complete. New characters, new locales, new narratives spring to mind continuously, begging to be cast as a new painting or sculpture or collage. For the time being the stage is set with this permutation of my realm, my universe. Enjoy.

Ananda Oliveri, 
February, 2014