Winter Arts Preview: Visual Art

The New Year ushers in some big hitters in the visual arts, as well as panoply of receptions, exhibitions, and festivals. During January, swing by UCSB’s University Art Museum to catch a number of shows that run through the end of the month, including Forms and Symbols, a series of beautiful abstract works. At Sullivan Goss through January 31, you’ll find A Winter Quartet, a group show featuring luscious landscape paintings. At City Hall now through May 28, don’t miss archival photographs of Santa Barbara City College, accompanied by historical notes.

At Westmont’s Reynolds Gallery from January 14-March 11, you’ll find two Japanese-themed exhibitions: American Viewing Stones and Kiyoshi Saito Prints. Between January 14 and March 12, UCSB’s MultiCultural Center displays works by painter, sculptor, and ceramicist Álvaro Ángeles Suman, who uses traditional Mexican motifs in his show, Realidad Separada.

Santa Barbara painter Warner Nienow displays his paintings of dramatically lit interiors and exteriors at the Architectural Foundation Gallery between January 19 and February 26; Santa Barbara viewers will recognize the Granada Theatre and Esau’s Café among his subjects. Artamo Gallery celebrates five years in business with Project A5, running January 20-February 28 and featuring work by more than a dozen contemporary artists. IAA award winner Hugh Margerum has a solo show of recent paintings at the Arts Fund from January 29-March 12, while CAF kicks off its 13th annual Valentine’s Day Exhibition on January 29, with a fabulous closing party and benefit auction on February 6.

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is the only West Coast stop for a collection of 19th-century masterpieces from the Walters Art Museum. Paintings by Delacroix, Ingres, Manet, and Monet will be on display between January 30 and May 30, and the museum will offer a host of related lectures and events.

Of course, February 4 and March 4 are both First Thursdays, which means a host of art-related events. Among them is an appearance by experimental theater artist Susan Simpson at CAF on February 4 as part of the popular Forum Lounge series. February 4 is also the kickoff for the second annual Rumble Art, an international contemporary art fair that runs through February 14.

Between March 6 and May 23, SBMA will display recently acquired works from its Indian collection including sculptures, paintings, watercolors, and lithography.

Also opening on March 6, at CAF, Sanford Biggers’s Moon Medicine takes on themes of cultural diversity from an African American perspective and through a variety of media.