In This Art Space, Size and Duration Matter
The 39th Annual ‘Small Images’ Show at Santa Barbara City College’s Atkinson Gallery Corrals Art from the Tri-Counties, in Compact Packages
Generous and reliably annual call-for-artists invitations are few and far between in the region. For various reasons, well-meaning projects and gallery outreaches tend to have fickle shelf lives. And none, certainly, have had the steady-pulsed longevity of the Small Images show, celebrating its 39th (count ‘em) anniversary at SBCC’s Atkinson Gallery this month.
One inherent balancing act for these exhibitions’ various curators through the years has been to land on a happy medium in terms of artwork population in a given show. This year’s model is judiciously parsed out by Santa Barbara Museum of Art Contemporary Art Curator James Glisson and UCSB’s AD&A Museum Curator Silvia Perea. The works are plentiful and diversified in medium and meaning, but they are also strategically arranged to allow for visual breathing room in the gallery.
In the obligatory rapid glance-through in the gallery, locals of a certain age (or cuisine inclination) may quickly zero in on a painting that deserves the unofficial Best Local Color image recognition — David Dixon’s painting “Lunch on Milpas.” More specifically, the image pays a due homage to a legendary eatery at Milpas and Alphonse Streets: La Super-Rica, itself now up to 44 years of service and international allure.
