Predicament or Crossroads, featuring works by Michael Kerbow, Stephen C. Wagner, and Robert Cantor

About

Desta Gallery presents Predicament or Crossroads, an exhibition that fosters dialogue on our current social and political affairs. The show invites viewers to engage in reflection on how to navigate these complex and challenging subjects. Our artists Michael Kerbow, Stephen C. Wagner and Robert Cantor express their concerns and dismay about our environmental, social and political issues.

Artist reception: October 6th, 2017, 6pm – 8pm

Michael Kerbow

Oil on canvas

We are delighted to present Michael Kerbow’s thought-provoking work on our consumption-driven culture and resulting challenges for our environment. Kerbow states: “My art explores the way in which we engage with our surroundings and the possible consequences our actions have upon the world in which we live. Through my work I attempt to question the rationale of our choices, and try to reveal the dichotomy that may exist between what we desire and what we manifest. Recently my work has focused upon the mechanisms that power our society and examines how they may influence the construct for a possible future.”

Michael Kerbow is a San Francisco-based artist who works in a variety of media including painting, drawing, assemblage, and digitally manipulated photography. He was born in North Carolina in 1964 and received an MFA from Pratt Institute in New York. He moved to the Bay Area in 1993. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and has appeared in multiple publications.

Stephen C. Wagner

Mixed Media on Paper

Stephen C. Wagner series consists of mixed media portraits composed of imagery from the threats that we face in the world. The imagery is over-laid on images from papers, including scientific, technological, mathematical and governmental documents, charts, graphs, diagrams, blueprints, and maps, depicting the ubiquitous pressures of the outside world.

Wagner expresses “the modern world is a challenging place. We endure threats of nuclear war, international terrorism, economic collapse, corporate greed, rampant consumerism, governmental corruption, worldwide epidemics, global warming. These pieces, however, are often tempered with playful composition and imagery displaying a naïve innocence, such as retro images from the past’s vision of the future.”

Having studied art since the age of six, Stephen C. Wagner's art education includes workshops at the Witte Museum, Trinity University, and private study, all in San Antonio, TX. He obtained his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Texas at Arlington in painting and graphic communication. Wagner has also completed the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education aesthetics education training program through the McCallum Theatre Education Institute in Palm Desert, CA.

Wagner has exhibited and sold his artwork in galleries in London, Chicago, Dallas, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Laguna Beach, San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, New Orleans, Galveston, Palm Springs, Sun Valley, and Kauai. His artwork is included in the permanent collections at the Riverside Art Museum in Riverside, CA, and the Museum of the Living Artist in San Diego, CA. He has completed large-scale art installations and his artwork has been featured in several films.

Robert Cantor

Fiberglass Infused Cast Stone

Robert Cantor, who has been represented by Desta Gallery for the past two years, expresses in his new work in clear and visible terms his feelings about recent political events in his most recent series of sculptures. His psychologist mind shines through in his comments: “First, a vulgar lying yam became president. Then, like so many others, I watched in horror as, day after day, this raging, narcissistic, truly unstable man-child and his wrecking crew did their destructive work. As I often do in times of stress, I took refuge in my studio in the hopes of finding some distraction and relief. What happened instead was the emergence of a series of cracked, conflicted forms. My underlying despair and outrage was clearly pushing through and into the clay figures.

Once it became clear to me that I was making a ‘Trump Edition’ of some kind of ‘PTSD’ imagery, I gave myself over to the creative task and began enjoying the process, even finding it psychologically helpful. Many of these forms are dark and despairing, some are more abstract, and some are lighter and more playful. But all are a response to the actual experience of outrage and traumatic disorientation following the election.”

Art and sculpture have been a life long passion for Robert Cantor. He has studied with Alan Kaprow (Rutgers University), Mogens Moller (Royal College of Copenhagen), Jesus Mendes (Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende), and Jack Kreutzer (Loveland, Colorado). He has enjoyed continuous representation in art galleries in California. His prize-winning work has been collected throughout the United States; featured in the 2005 spring issue of "Direct Art Magazine", and awarded a coveted place in 2006's "Best Artists of California". Bob Cantor has been a clinical psychologist in San Francisco since 1973. He was an Associate Professor at UCSF and has been in private practice for over thirty years. He has also published two books: "And A Time To Live" (1980, Harper and Row, nominated and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize) and a novel, "Of Struggle and Flight" (1990, Little Viking).

About Desta Gallery

Desta Gallery is a contemporary fine art gallery in San Anselmo, California focusing on the beauty of the creative arts, featuring established and emerging artists, while highlighting socially relevant themes of our times. The Gallery showcases paintings, photography, sculptures and ceramics. The gallery hosts artist receptions, poetry readings, speaking engagement and art workshops with the idea of connecting communities, artists and collectors in an atmosphere that inspires creativity and stimulates intellectually. To learn more, please visit www.destagallery.com.