Review

By PATRICIA MORRIS BUCKLEY for the North County Times on August 26, 2009

As an art student at Saddleback College, Karen McGuire promised one of her professors that some day she'd have an art exhibition featuring drawings created by hand. It has taken her 10 years to fulfill that promise but "Moving Points: Contemporary Drawing in Southern California" has finally arrived, and McGuire's former teacher is one of the featured artists.

"There seems to be so much interest in computers, technology and the media," said McGuire, director of the Cannon Gallery in Carlsbad, which is hosting the exhibit. "But the basis of every great artist is someone who is knowledgeable about the fundamentals. Drawing is our most primordial art form and something that a lot of great artists are still doing, in one form or another."

McGuire has gathered the works of eight artists, who draw in a myriad of styles and media. They work in pencil, crayon, charcoal, chalk, pastel, pen and ink, watercolor or gouache ---- and each artist's work is unique and an intimate vision that's translated into drawings.

For instance, Orange County artist William Riley (her former teacher) creates abstract works, which encompass images of hearts and skulls as a representation of energy and spirit. Pat Warner of Los Angeles creates installations that speak about our ideas of home and its relationship to nature, as the insides of the walls feature drawings of a garden.

Tom Morgan of Orange County (another of McGuire's former teachers) draws landscape scenes of rivers and trails, as well as exploring Eastern philosophies. Ernest Silva of San Diego uses the allegories of animals to look at nature and family. San Diego's Iana Quesnell's work looks at ancient Mexico while L.A.'s Enjeong Noh's drawings of men and women study human character.