Fine Art

This Week in Arts: artist talks, exhibit openings and Visitor Made

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Erik Beehn at MCQ.

Barrick Talks: Justin Favela

Las Vegas artist Justin Favela, known for his large-scale, piñata-inspired works steeped in pop culture, Latino culture, satire and Las Vegas iconography, will discuss his art and recent exhibits March 15 as part of the Barrick Talks series at UNLV's Barrick Museum.

Favela represented Nevada in the national State of the Art exhibit at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in 2014 with his life-size, piñata-inspired '64 Chevy Impala low-rider, and is one of the featured artists in the upcoming Tilting the Basin: Contemporary Art of Nevada, opening August 5 at the Nevada Museum of Art. Some know him for aberrant Big Bird, out of character and on the floor, recently featured at the Contemporary Arts Center's Taste exhibit, or his monthlong Chop Shop residency last summer at Alios on Main Street, where he disassembled the Impala and used the materials for new works.

Favela will be discussing Chop Shop, as well as his residency at Arquetopia in Puebla, Mexico, and his Car Show exhibition last March with artist Sean Slattery, which looked at '90s-era celebrity scandals through the cars involved. March 15, 6-7 p.m., free, UNLV's Barrick Auditorium, 702-895-3381.

Printmaking with Ellsworth: A Conversation with Erik Beehn

Ellsworth Kelly represented simplicity, color and form in his hard-edge, minimalist works, known to be deceptively simple but mathematically complex. The American painter, sculptor and printmaker died in January at age 92. In conjunction with Ellsworth Kelly, an exhibit of prints through May 14 at the Barrick Museum’s Inner Gallery, the Barrick is featuring a talk by former Las Vegas artist Erik Beehn, who worked with Kelly for five years at Gemini Graphic Editions Limited in LA. Remembering his prints as among the most difficult he’d worked on ("deceivingly simplistic in their execution, both tedious and precise”), Beehn will share his experience working with the master.

Beehn, who received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago last year, currently lives in Chicago and has a show opening this week in Las Vegas at Michele C. Quinn Fine Art Advisory on Seventh Street. Printmaking with Ellsworth: March 16, 6-7 p.m., free, UNLV's Barrick Museum. 702-895-3381.

Making art

Using thousands of stickers adhered to mylar, Eun Young Choi creates exuberant and abstract pop works that delve into a pupil-dilating fantasyland of colorful patterns and narratives and sheer eye candy, drawing the viewer into the work with the reflective mylar balancing somewhere between reality and illusion. Her "Scratch and Sniff" on display in the Barrick Museum's Unseen exhibit is the featured work for this week's public Visitor Made event. The art-making initiative held on the third Thursday of each month invites the community to examine works and exhibits, then make art inspired by them using materials provided by the museum. March 17, 4-7 p.m., UNLV's Barrick Museum, 702-895-3381.

Erik Beehn

Artist Erik Beehn grew up in Las Vegas watching the architectural landscape redefine itself piecemeal with the continual opening, closing and removal of iconic landmarks, questioning specificity in a city of change and re-creation. In his solo show opening March 17 at Michele C. Quinn Fine Art Advisory, he explores generalized ideas of beauty and representation in a digital culture of ambiguity through drawings, photo collages and installation.

Using general-appeal stock imagery created for mass and broad audiences, Beehn builds off the unoriginal, adding and subtracting into new mixed-media abstract works, linking contemporary culture and art history through process-heavy studio work involving paint, solvent, photography and more. This is the third exhibit at MCQ Fine Art featuring the former Las Vegas resident, who received his MFA from from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago last year (where he also received his BFA), a city he now calls home. Opening reception March 17, 6-8 p.m.; exhibit on display through May 20, Michele C. Quinn Fine Art Advisory, 620 S. 7th St., 702-366-9339.

The Gathering

Known for his soft sculpture works made from latex house paint—balancing somewhere between otherworldly and erotic realms of representation and abstraction—artist Chris Bauder distorts the familiar and expected with curiously inviting works practically begging to be squeezed and coddled. In The Gathering, opening this week at the Clark County Government Center, Bauder creates an installation from dozens of altered tumbleweeds, nomadic creatures living on their own accord and traveling great distances post-mortem, gathering whatever latches onto their webs of dried desert brush.

The artist collected the tumbleweeds during a six-month period of traveling between Las Vegas and LA, and altered them to play on their essential role in germination and tendency to gather at their own whim (using latex paint and other methods). The UNLV MFA grad will be featured in the Nevada Museum of Art’s Tilting the Basin: Contemporary Art of Nevada exhibit opening in August in Reno. Through May 6 (reception and artist talk March 18, 6-8 p.m.), Clark County Government Center Rotunda Gallery, 550 S. Grand Central Parkway, 702-455-7340.

The Sidney Awards

Jazz vocalist Marlena Shaw, midcentury architect Hugh Taylor and magician Johnny Thompson will be honored at the 2016 Nevada Entertainer/Artist Hall of Fame dinner and ceremony March 15, each recognized for their impact on arts in Las Vegas.

Taylor, whose imprint lives on in the Morelli House and other residential architecture throughout the Valley, died last October and is known for his work on the Desert Inn, Moulin Rouge and other projects that defined a critical architectural era in Las Vegas. Shaw, a longtime resident, is active in the local jazz scene, particularly through her work with UNLV. And comedic illusionist Thompson—of the Great Tomsoni & Company—is recognized for his work with the local magic greats, particularly Penn and Teller.

Art collector and philanthropist Patrick Duffy is this year’s Dean’s Medal recipient for his work with local nonprofits and other community efforts; and Danielle Kelly, former executive director of the Neon Museum, who earned her MFA from UNLV in 2007, is receiving the College of Fine Arts Alumnus of the Year award. March 15, 5:30 p.m., UNLV Student Union Ballroom, $75 (proceeds benefit UNLV’s College of Fine Arts), 702-895-2787

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