a casual coastal contemporary art gallery
1075 Main Street, Cambria
scroll to the bottom for every show in reverse chronological order
CCC Gallery and artist Rachel Sager invite you to join us on the central coast for her latest exhibition, "Prescribed Burn." This solo show builds on her prior body of work while offering a stunning departure from convention, as Sager's evocative depictions of clouds and explosions give rise to a mesmerizing new semi-abstract series, unlike anything witnessed from her before.
In "Prescribed Burn," Sager delves into the realm of the sublime, exploring an almost preternatural grandeur of form and color. Through her well informed choices, Sager invites viewers to contemplate , while also confronting the inner stories we can project onto these almost shape shifting entities.
Known for her ability to evoke emotion and provoke insight with each panel, Sager's latest series pushes the boundaries of her own traditional painting technique, offering a new perspective on unfamiliar yet captivating subjects. By infusing her work with elements of pointed abstraction, Sager invites viewers to engage with her art on a deeper, more personal level, inviting introspection and interpretation that reach beyond the internalized world of the viewer and guide attention back onto the painted surface.
"Prescribed Burn" serves as a testament to Sager's continued evolution as an artist, showcasing her fearless exploration of new techniques and themes. Through her bold experimentation and unwavering commitment to authenticity, Sager challenges audiences to expand their perceptions of art and the world around them.
JAYSON MAULE’
Maule’ (b.1999) refuses to conform to the constraints of the standard deviations of an empirical formula bell curve. This drive to be recognized outside the average data points of 68%-95%-99.7% define the current trajectory of his practice. His art speaks to the inherent chaos and beauty of existence, urging viewers to question preconceived notions and embrace the limitless possibilities of creation.
In a world obsessed with categorization and quantification, Jayson Maule is an adept practitioner of artistic freedoms, reminding us that true innovation lies in daring to venture beyond the boundaries of the expected. Living and working in sleepy Arroyo Grande in his childhood home, Jayson exists between the overgrown marshes of a frog sanctuary and the endless neutral cottage cheese textures and tiled roofs of a suburban subdivision.
Employing a diverse array of painting, drawing media, and repurposed objects Maule weaves engineered color palettes, textured surfaces, and mark-making, resulting in a synthesis of abstraction and representation reminiscent of collage.
Within his creations, familiar symbols, runes, language, textual elements, and prose emerge over the course of the artistic endeavor, orchestrating a narrative. Maule's artistic endeavors aim to capture a facet of contemporary human experience, delving into the complexities of collective identity formation amid the challenges of the present era.
Grounded in a deep understanding of historical context, both cultural and artistic, Maule navigates the intricate web of human relationships, places, and ideas, encapsulating his personal truth within these works.
THE BURDEN OF THE COLLECTOR
At what point does an object lose it’s value? Sometimes never. One man’s treasure is… well you already know the rest. Is the art of collecting and preserving it’s own practice separate from the objects that are sought after? Does any discerning line exist between us and our stuff?
Who decides what’s what in a world gone mad…? Well in this case… YOU DO.
ODE TO YE OLDE SURF SHOPPE
A tip of the hat to the people and places that molded many a young artistic career. A very personal nod to the MOLLUSK of the early 2000’s (created by Johanna St. Clair and John McCambridge) that supported so many talented artists and friends in New York, Los Angeles and San Fransisco. Way too many to name here, we’ll have to save that list for a show when we can get a piece from each of them. For now, this particular show is a simple THANK YOU to those that held a space functioning somewhere between a cultural hub/incubator for young creatives, as well as just a place to buy some wax. Or at least try to earn a free bar by paying some dues.
SHAPING SURF HISTORY BOOK SIGNING
In the Fall of 1979, Jimmy Metyko left his Texas Gulf shores and moved to Santa Barbara, California, to attend the prestigious Brooks Institute of Photography. There he found himself perfectly situated to extensively chronicle one of the most influential epochs in surfing history. With his unique eye and images, he was embraced by a dynamic collection of young surfers who were determined to redefine progressive surfing. Under the tutelage of soon-to-be legendary surfboard designer Al Merrick, most notable of these surfers was future world champion Tommy Curren, with whom Metyko developed a close working relationship. The resulting images from that time are the primary subject of Shaping Surf History: Tom Curren and Al Merrick, California 1980-1983, recently published by Rizzoli Books.
ELLE WILLSON (b. 1996) lives, works, breathes and embodies the more enviable aspects of living a life here on the central coast of California. The colored pencil on paper works from this show are reductive in only the most complimentary of ways. Her works are an exercise in the art of appreciation and a tribute to the devout nature of actionable expressions taken over time. These iterations on a theme are carried not to any logical conclusion, but a repeated meditation of strokes and markings with a reverence for nature’s little colorful gifts.
Within these pieces, flowers and their essences are broken down, color blocked, and spread across multitudes even as they are built back up. Flat planes of color give way to infinite depths upon a cursory inspection. Her precise hand gestures grace the accumulated evidence with learned diligence and a preternatural wink towards the sublime. The mechanics of this perhaps carry over from her day job as a cleaner of other’s spaces.
In that world, the harder and more deliberate the work, the more invisible it becomes. To imbue her repetitious and exacting movements of purpose into her personal artistic expression is a subtle act of rebellion. In turn making the unseen seen, rather than continually disposing of the unsightly.
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POETRY READING
there’s a first time for everything.
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MAYA WEEKS
HOST, author, phd, poet, person.
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John Goodhue
Writer
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Gabriel Seaver
Musician, poet
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Jordan Chesnut
Author, play write, poet
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Kathryn Delancelotti
poet
Inbar Levi b.1987 is a photographer, a creative director and a fashion designer. Born and raised on the coastline of Israel, Inbar has spent almost a decade in London completing her fashion menswear design undergraduate, and postgraduate degrees at Central Saint Martins in London. Inbar had stints at Maison Martin Margiela in Paris and Wendy&Jim in Vienna. Following her graduation from the Masters fashion design program at Central Saint Martins in London and studying under the direction of the late Louise Wilson OBE, Inbar had relocated first to New York City, and later on to Los Angeles where she launched her own fashion label.
Inbar was selected by Vogue Italia to present her collection at Pitti Uomo in Florence, and had also showed several collections at the NYC showroom Capsule.
Inbar has photographed and creative directed videos and editorials for the likes of Vogue Italia, i-D magazine, Tank magazine and Rollercoaster, and her collections have been featured in numerous international publications such as Man About Town, Wonderland and Highsnobiety.
Inbar’s photo books and photo zines are carried at bookstores such as Photo-eye Santa Fe, Arcana in Los Angeles, the Photographer’s Gallery London, Perrotin gallery New York and Salt and Pepper Tokyo and Printed Matter. ‘In Light of Darkness’ was published by Innen Zurich in 2021 the same year Inbar had a solo show ‘In Sync’ at the Icon. In 2022 Inbar’s work toured in Japan, the show traveled to different locations in Tokyo and Kyoto.
Jaimie Muehlhausen is a graphic designer, a folk artist, a musician, an author, a songwriter, and probably a few other things. Growing up in Oklahoma, Jaimie received one of the 12 prestigious “Young Talent in Oklahoma” art scholarships. He then moved on to Phillips University and studied art and graphic design. After school, Jaimie headed to California, where he fell into being the AIRWALK Creative Director. He had always dreamed of art directing a magazine, and was fortunate to take over as Art Director of Snowboarder Magazine, which became the top selling snowboard magazine in the world. Jaimie and a talented editorial staff helped set the tone for the world of snowboarding in the ‘90s. While at Surfer Publications, Jaimie also art directed the resurrection of Skateboarder Magazine. Jaimie jumped on board for the next 21 years as Brand Manager and Creative Director for Tony Hawk, Inc. and The Tony Hawk Foundation.
A fan of hunting vintage guitars at the goodwill, bizzaro pit stops on route 66, and all things AMERICANA designer/artist/ and branding wizard Jaimie Muehlhausen takes inspiration from the Shriners International, a fraternity based on fun, fellowship and the Masonic principles of brotherly love, relief and truth.
Cruise Control Contemporary is pleased to announce No Return, a solo exhibition of new oil paintings by Max Xeno Karnig. No Return features a series of portraits and still life paintings meditating on a painting’s ability to both represent and simultaneously occlude the subject at hand. The images conjured in the paintings more readily resemble a memory, idea, or dream of any given subject than any true photographic image. A metaphysical reconstruction that lies somewhere between the ideal and the surreal. Form itself becomes more predominant than any true resemblance. The image as it is conceived in the mind through an amalgamation of senses becomes its own type of revelation. To quote the great progenitor of “metaphysical painting” himself:
“When a revelation grows out of the sight of an arrangement of objects, then the work which appears in our thoughts is closely linked with the circumstance that has provoked its birth. One resembles the other, but in a very strange way, like the resemblance there is between two brothers, or rather between the image of someone we know seen in a dream, and that person in reality; it is, and at the same time it is not, that same person; it is as if there had been a slight and mysterious transfiguration of features. I believe and have faith that from certain points of view, the sight of someone in a dream is proof of his metaphysical reality – in certain accidental occurrences that sometimes happen to us; in the manner and the arrangement that things appear to us and awaken in us unknown sensations of joy and surprise: the sensations of revelations.” – Giorgio De Chirico, 1911
“My art derives from the forms and situations of the coastal environment; an area of ephemerality and continuous change; a region where extremes meet; where one is always conscious of infinite relationships of light and movement. A thread running through my work has been the effect of seeing and experiencing things from above. The aerial overhead component allows for vibrant, undulating space to mentally visualize within. Influences of global crisis within the natural world also drive the work.”
At age nine, Barry was peddling his Huffy bicycle home for dinner when he rounded a corner and ran head-on into a moving truck. The bicycle got eaten under the vehicle. Barry got thrown forty feet. He spent a month in the hospital with a skull fracture. When he got home, still recovering, he did a drawing of the accident—from a bird’s eye view.
Cut to the latter half of the 1960s when Barry serves four years in the Air Force. Among his various duties, one of them is to ride in the back of planes during their fuel tests, which had a clear plexiglass floor, i.e., a kind of aquarium-like view. “l would lay back there and just look at landscape from above for hours and hours and hours,” says Barry.
Over Head features paintings on gauze, paintings on canvas, assemblage, and found objects. It also features three large-scale paintings that Barry made for an exhibition in the 1980s. In the time that he began working on them to the opening of the show, his gallery moved to a new location. On the day of the install, Barry discovered that the work would not fit through the door, thus they’ve been sitting in his various studios for the last fifty years.
-Jamie Brisick; author, writer, and photographer whose work has been featured in The Surfer’s Journal, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Guardian.
ALEX KOPPS
Alex Kopps lived in San Francisco and attended the California College of Arts. At CCA he focused on graphic design and painting while continuing to make and show fine art. Alex was introduced to film making through the amateur Super8 and VHS movies as he made traveling and surfing. This eventually led to directing music videos, commercials, short documentaries and other film related work such as title design, motion graphics and creative / art direction roles.
Always interested in process and discovery, Alex has worked in many mediums including painting, drawing, photography and a variety of film making styles and techniques. Alex takes much of his inspiration from contemporary urban culture, bad graffiti, street ephemera and the analogue video and film effects from the past. He has traveled extensively showing his fine art and working on a wide range of creative projects and finds intrest in the causal, chaotic, homemade and unexpected in art, surfing and life. Alex currently lives on the central coast, where he was raised.
ANNA FUSCO
Mad Dog loved Jenny west, and everywhere they went Jenny asked Mad Dog, “Should we live here?” Though none of the rolling hills they got to know were theirs to own, they shaped their story for years to come.
Anna Fusco’s work for this show is born from a love and appreciation for pulp western comics and their place in framing the idea of manifest destiny in the American west, and that natural friction with the current sentimental and fleeting possibility of modern home ownership.
If nowhere is home then why can’t everywhere feel a bit like it? If everywhere is home then why is there still that incomplete feeling?
Her unearthing of the internal emotional landscapes at stake are heightened by the external evidence presented back to us. The concepts of safety and security through a place of ones own, in contrast to the revelations of life on the road are the compelling forces of her storytelling. Vignettes, asides, and anecdotes become the proof of life we can recall, and eventually become the truth we remember over time.
Anna currently lives, writes and creates in the hills of San Luis Obispo County.
CRAIG ROBBINS
THE SEEKER
WORKS AVAILABLE
Craig Robbins (b. 1994) is an avid collector of sorts. Be it shards of abalone shells on the shores, the precise and solitary nature of his “Specimens” series, or his cross country adventure to document every FUTURO home in the United States, Robbins is unrelenting in his quest to discover, capture and share.
‘THE SEEKER’ is a culmination of his recent efforts. To simply call it “photography” would not be telling his whole story. Endless scouring for the perfect sample and source material to harvest with various light transfer techniques has revealed a refined selection over its many iterations. Scale and scope is interpolated as Craig’s various subjects reveal themselves over practice and time.
This fascination and obsession with such details is a driving force of his work, all derived from his innate curiosity with the world at large, and at small.
Craig currently lives and works in Santa Barbra and in the Pacific Ocean as a commercial urchin tender.
He graduated in 2018 from Art Center College of Design, assisted Photographer Mark Burns on “The National Parks Photography Project” and is currently featured at the PEARL FINCHER MUSEUM OF FINE ART, Houston, TX.
WORKS AVAILABLE
COOPER MCDONNELL
“HAND MADE”
Always surrounded by art and objects, Cooper’s journey with clay began before he can consciously recall. His late Grandfather, Ken Price, amassed a prolific body of ceramic works in his specific technique still undeniable to this day. Cooper was just lucky enough to witness and study Ken’s creative process during his formative years. Certainly, not all kids get to have a wet mound of clay to manipulate as a form of entertainment and exploration in a studio setting.
After majoring in ceramics at the University of Colorado, Boulder he returned to Los Angeles and worked under artists Rogan Gregory, Ernie Lee, and Jon Krawczyk.
Currently Cooper’s body of work resides within that space between form and function, how each modality can compliment each other to an extent. And how they can be their own distinctive stand alone representations.
HAND MADE is his most recent exploration in clay of that playful, joyful, and purposeful space between.
Cooper’s work is developed and fired both in Malibu, California and Taos, New Mexico.
CHARLOTTE BEAVERS
RAINBOW
through 01/21/23
Charlotte Beavers brings her latest watercolor works on paper to her solo show; ‘RAINBOW’.
Subtle as they are refined, her practice takes into account a deep affection for not just the landscapes presented, but also her specific usage of undertones, washes and complexions. Within her created fantastic worlds, she allows for the paper itself to respectfully have its own identity in the compositions, ever present but weightless.
These offerings are a sublime reflection of what is an essential facet within the central coast experience; the access and ability to be in and a part of nature itself.
In addition, we will have on hand limited quantities of her hand printed calendars and silk screened shirts.
Charlotte Beavers is a painter who resides in Cayucos and has received her BFA at San Francisco State University. Her previous showings include the General Store in San Francisco, CA, Sweeney Kaye Gallery in Oakland, CA and Public Lands Sacramento, CA.
MATT WESSEN
GRIDLOCKED
WORKS AVAILABLE
Found, lost, discovered, recovered and discarded then reused and reframed bits of pixels, slides, screenshots, prints, objects and busted hard drives from the road less traveled will make up his solo show: ‘GRIDLOCKED’.
“I’ve spent a lot of time listening to old surfers talk about their experiences… it feels more like the tradition of Native American storytelling. I’ve heard the same story from so many people, from so many different perspectives. The difference between you buying one over another is because of what that person stands for.”
This type of undocumented, personal storytelling is a characteristic friction in Wessen’s artistic practice: a deep respect and nostalgia for the influence of the past, and a desire to preserve it. On one hand, the “underground” has been defined by its mystery, by its “if you know, you know” attitude. On the other, Wessen dutifully captures and preserves the sentimental objects that come from a communally imagined history by cataloging and presenting those objects and moments with his own personally redefined scope, scale and medium.
WORKS AVAILABLE
CHAD HAGERMAN
BEYOND THE PINES
Working as an apprentice to a furniture maker in Sweden who spoke little English, he learned new ways of engaging in profound communication without the use of verbal language; enhancing an energetic connection. He emerged from this experience with what would become the foundation to his design standpoints and a deeper comprehension of human nature through the power of intention, and then incorporated all of these impressions into his work.
It was in northern Europe that traditional Scandinavian aesthetic resonated immediately with him –he saw great beauty in the clean, simple and practical–, while his return to the US, settling in California in his early 20s, brought together a combination of attributes that would remain constants in his endeavors: With newfound skills in architectural development, he discovered sound value and admiration for elements found in the early stages of building –exposed wood and hardware, raw concrete, bare steel and other natural edge materials– that would define his contemporary style.
Today, his work reflects his belief in the social significance of the objects that we choose to surround ourselves with and the dynamic relationship we share with our day-to-day environment.
Through a decade of artisanal experimentation paired with a deep understanding of the energies of clients and spaces he works with, Hagerman crafted his artistic persona developing functional design in the form of site-specific furniture and limited edition collections.
JEFF LANCASTER
HOUSE/DESTINATIONS
“We had just entered the Pandemic, early 2020, isolation was starting to take hold, and I was filled with a sense of purpose to chronicle much of what I was feeling about the world. The political climate, the environment, the American dream… the whole catastrophe. How to convey this came to me in a painting I had done of a house isolated in the trees, and another of a woman in a bath… isolated, solitary and alone, a beacon of humanity, but the solace and silence of it all. The use of a metaphor became my vehicle. For me, a means of communicating without browbeating, allowing the viewer, with a hint in the paintings title, and occasional humor added in, to journey on their own story and conclusion. Many people arrive at their own meanings, which are vastly different from what I personally intended. Perfect!”
“A portion of my visual vocabulary for this show is culled from a lifelong, close relationship with the ocean and coastline. Having travelled extensively to surf around the world, it seems I have limitless inspiration. I do love darker themes, shadowy realms that evoke a darker side. Surfing to me, among other things, is a meditation. The images attempt to portray the deepness of my connection. For me, as a surfer for over 60 years, it’s not just about the ride, which is only part of the journey. I attempt to chronicle the deeper connection through images of destination, preparation, patience, arrival… all that leads up to the eventual ride.”
WORKS AVAILABLE
NED EVANS
H2O’s-2oyears
NED EVANS
H2O’s-20 years
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