December 22, 2006

ALUMNA'S EXHIBIT EXPLORES 'FRACTURED' BELIEF

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. - Whether it's love, beauty or ideas with universal impact and meaning, artist and Cal State San Bernardino alumna April Durham will explore the "big questions" in life in her CSUSB exhibit, titled "Self-Created Chameleon on the Hot Seat." The show opens Jan. 20, in the Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum . The exhibit is the first in a series of 10 alumni shows, "Art Alumni in the Spotlight." Durham , who graduated from CSUSB in 1997 with a B.A. in art, looks at storytelling and narrative and how these mediums have been used throughout history to construct belief systems. But the stories she portrays in her art are "fractured" and "incomplete," making their meanings elusive.

Durham tells these stories through anthropomorphized animals, birds, reptiles, and fish that float on crop circles, globular clusters, and slime pools. The work is modeled on the overlapping arrangement of a fugue, where multiple voices speak in a type of malfunctioning harmonium.

April Durham is a visual artist and a writer. She has exhibited at Glass Box and Zoo Gallerie in Paris and Nantes, France, respectively, and a mix of venues in Los Angeles . Her drawings were recently included in a collection called "Armpit of the Mole," published by the fundació 30 km/s, Barcelona . She has an M.F.A. from Art Center .

Durham 's exhibit runs through mid-March in the art museum's Harriet Mueller Gallery. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, Jan. 20, from 5-7 p.m.

Museum hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Thursday from 10 a.m.-7 p.m.

Parking is $4 per vehicle. For more information, call the CSUSB Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum at (909) 537-7373.

For more information about Cal State San Bernardino, contact the university's public affairs office at (909) 537-5007, or visit the news Web site at http://news.csusb.edu.

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