April 13, 2006

‘PAVING PARADISE’: AN EXHIBITION OF QUIET, DISQUIETING IMAGES

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – Artist Sant Khalsa photographically explores the natural state of the Santa Ana River and recent changes because of regional population growth and development in her exhibition, “Paving Paradise: Stories from the Santa Ana Watershed,” which opened on April 6, at California State University, San Bernardino.

The Santa Ana River stretches 96 miles, and Khalsa, the chair of CSUSB’s art department, has been photographing the waterway and surrounding environments for close to 30 years. This exhibition is the culmination of a California Documentary Project Grant from the California Council for the Humanities. The artist has also been the recipient of other prestigious awards in support of her work from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council and the Center for Photographic Arts in Carmel.

“My photographic work is intended to create a contemplative space where one can sense the subtle and profound connections between themselves, the natural world and our constructed settings,” says Khalsa. “The river is a place of community, an economic resource, a recreational site, a natural habitat, a sanctuary and a source of life as well as of destruction.”

The show looks at beauty and conflict – how the beauty of the natural riverbeds conflicts with mankind’s dams; how flood plains conflict with communities of homes; how riparian wetlands conflict with concrete channels.

Khalsa was first drawn to the Santa Ana because of its vast open landscape, the starkness of its often-dry riverbeds and the power of its occasional rushing waters. The river remains her source for creative inspiration as she depicts the critical role it plays within the region, her home since 1975.

“This exhibition is one of numerous presentations in the series, ‘News from the Art Department’– and a second one by Sant Khalsa during my tenure with the museum,” says Eva Kirsch, director of Cal State San Bernardino’s Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum. “Sant’s calm, restrained, intimate and elegant photographs are enormously powerful in their content – so relevant, and not only to Southern Californians.”

Sant Khalsa’s “Paving Paradise” runs April 6-May 13. A general reception will be held on April 6 from 5-7 p.m. On Earth Day, April 22, from 3-6 p.m., a reception and gallery talk by Khalsa will take place in the Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum. Also, a community forum on the future of the Santa Ana River, “Re-envisioning Paradise,’ sponsored by the CSUSB Water Resources Institute takes place May 4 from 5-8 p.m. in the university’s Fullerton Art Museum and the Visual Arts Center Auditorium.

Hours for the museum are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Thursday from 10 a.m.-7 p.m.

For more information, call the Cal State San Bernardino Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum at (909) 537-7373. For more information on Cal State San Bernardino, contact the university’s public affairs office at (909) 537-5007 and visit http://news.csusb.edu.

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