Visual Art Exhibits
Founded in 2023, our visual arts initiative aims to connect visual and performing arts, create a vibrant and dynamic lobby space for patrons, and amplify the work of visual artists. Ticket holders can view exhibits one hour prior to performances and during intermission. For more information, please contact us at pacslo@calpoly.edu.
Current Art Installations
IN CONCERT : SAINTS AND SUPERNATURALS
by Christina McPhee
Gallery Lobby Exhibit | 2024/25 Season
The house lights dim and the audience quiets. Stage lights fade up through theatrical haze, like a sunset weaving marine fog and the light of the gods, through Harold Miossi Hall, as the performance begins. From Sam Cooke to Saint Francis, Persephone to Saint Cecilia, the Saints and Supernaturals stand upstage in silhouette. This ragtag band of energies, raucous, and revenant beings are the pillars of the scene. In silence, Goddess Athena travels downstage, slowly stepping barefoot across this sacred ground, while Persephone, entering from the underworld, takes center stage, commanding the space. Effervescent and evocative music commences, and the lights intensify. The characters move through a series of solos and duets, with poignant moments of stillness juxtaposed by crescendos of exuberance in unison. Stigmata, slithering like salamanders, hunt for Saint Francis. Mothra jetés through the scene, fixating her sights on Saint Lucy, her eyes on a plate. Sam Cooke sings ‘and I shall be healed.’ In the distance, a crowd shouts in celebration, ’Cecilia! Cecilia!’ hailing the new queen of mercy and music, culminating the scene. The Saints and Supernaturals gather downstage in reverence and conclusion as the lights slowly fade…
Presented by Performing Arts Center San Luis Obispo, in association with Left Field Gallery, Los Osos, California, and curated by Heather Gray. Special thanks to Nick Wilkinson, Terry Hargrave, and Molly McPhee.
The pieces are available for purchase after the exhibit ends in the spring. Please contact Left Field Gallery at leftfieldslo@gmail.com for more information.
ARTIST BIO:
Christina McPhee was born in Los Angeles Country and grew up in rural Nebraska. Her most recent solo gallery show, ‘Feast Day,’ (2024) inaugurated the current saints and supernaturals project, at Left Field Gallery on the Central Coast of California, where she lives and works. Among many museum collections of her work are the Whitney Museum of American Art and International Center of Photography, New York; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Washington State University, Pullman; and the Williamson Gallery at Scripps College, Claremont. In California, her public non-profit exhibitions and performances have taken place with the support of Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive (with Pamela Z for Carbon Song Cycle); Crocker Museum of Art with Water, CA; Irenic Projects Pasadena; California Museum of Photography/Digital Studio; Cerritos College Art Gallery; and currently, with the UCLA Art/Science Lab, Los Angeles in cooperation with the Getty’s PST ART: Art and Science Collide in Los Angeles.