As we approach the tenth anniversary of the First Friday Downtown Ukiah Art Walk, Paradigm will welcome a special breed of talent that is rumored to have awakened in the Ukiah Valley. A more appropriate time to unearth unprecedented works of art by a locally born and raised artist could not have been better identified by one of Art Walk’s oldest venues, the Paradigm Shop and Gallery at 312 N.School St.
This coming Friday, Andrés Arcón will present Tempestad, a set of watercolors asking the creative minds of Northern California to awaken to the hope and despair through which the environment communicates with us as inhabitants of this planet. Trained from the days when he could only carry a brush in his hand, Arcón’s work uses the tools and expertise of his grandmother’s watercolor mastery and applies discipline to discover where we might start looking for harmonious answers to our capricious climate.
After moving overseas to Spain to follow his creative roots in 2008, Arcón chose to return to northern California in 2018 following wildfires unprecedented in Ukiah Valley history. . Soon after, eyes blazing with the reflection of all that Australia would lose from its own wildfires, Arcón redirected the subject of his work from architecture to the current climate crisis.
Sharing part of his personal desire to see the environment taken more seriously, Arcón explains. “I like to think of my work as a mirror for a population so eager to see themselves progress. What we don’t see – and this is where my new series, Tempestad, asks audiences to experience the creative act of observation – is what is shown to us when we subtract our image from the mirror and reflect on the volatile state of the environment that impedes our progress as a human community committed to evolution, but held back from progress where we are unable to take the environment into account.
While First Friday Art Walk has seen a number of environmentally conscious exhibitions over the years, Arcón’s work will only be exhibited on the evening of the Art Walk. “Unlike a pop-up, the flash exhibition I will be showing between five and eight o’clock this Friday evening is a testament to how quickly the planet can burst into illustrious color and beauty with the birth of spring, but how simultaneously, like parodies of the multiple wildfires that have ravaged the world lately, Earth can also turn around and take it all away in the blink of an eye.
Indeed, three hours will only be the blink of an eye when Arcón exhibits this Friday. Luckily, he makes sure the event is full of rejoicing, with food, drink and live music, because “spring is still flooding us with beauty, flora and fauna.” Joyfully, he reminds us that we are in another autumn that also promises a bountiful harvest without the wildfires, which is, for him, a sign that perhaps the Earth is still putting down roots so that we were looking at ourselves and our establishments and making a change.
A few private collectors have had access to a taste of the Arcón material that will be on display this Friday, including Mary Anne Landis, former mayor of Ukiah. According to Landis, “Artworks so focused on climate awareness have only been displayed on the streets of Ukiah a handful of times. Given the cross-cultural perspective of Mr. Arcón’s artistic commentary and the state of emergency we are immediately experiencing – from forest fires to the loss of ancient conifers – this artistic overture is essential for anyone who wants to keep a finger on the pulse of the conversation we really need to have right now on how we can come together as a people and address the macrocosm of environmental consciousness that we are unable to address as individuals.Arcón’s work waves the flag of urgency via beautifully rendered landscapes in contemplating where we stand on the brink of an environmental apocalypse.
After years of welcoming artists developed in the salty brine of Northern California’s west coast and the arid vistas of inland mountainous landscapes covered in vineyards and oaks, Ukiah is ringing in a new era of talent with art galleries. booming avant-garde welcoming scrupulously selected. talents to come this October 2022 First Friday Artwalk. Like every First Friday, which will take place this Friday, October 7 from 5 p.m., a handful of galleries and art spaces will host works by artists from all over the world. area, including culturally conscious exhibits at the Pear Tree Shopping’s Medium Gallery. Center and the Corner Gallery at the intersection of Church and State Streets.
For more information on the First Friday Artwalk, please visit: http://artwalkukiah.org/ The portfolio of past work by Andrés Arcón, the artist in this article, can be found via Instagram: @andresarcon415