Grand Central Art Center Tag

By Tyler Stallings View of Grand Central Art Center elevator closed as one approaches To Be Among Friends, 2025. At the Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana, the mundane elevator is transformed into a liminal chamber of longing in To Be Among Friends, a collaboration between artist and sound designer Joshua-Michéle Ross and typographic textile artist Hope Meng, and curated by GCAC Director/Senior curator, John Spiak. As part of a continuation from Ross’s earlier virtual performance The Adjacent Possible, this immersive installation is both a time capsule and...

10 April, 2025 /

By Chris Hoff Rachel Hakimian Emenaker’s Deep Roots Among Fallen Trees at Grand Central Art Center is a show that feels both urgent and elegiac, a visual essay on migration and memory that resists sentimentality while examining the deep, sometimes painful strata of movement and place. It’s the kind of exhibition that lands at exactly the right time and in exactly the right place, Santa Ana, a city shaped by migration, gentrification, and the slow churn of history underfoot. Emenaker, with a keen sense of material...

12 March, 2025 /

By Liz Goldner Gilbert “Magu” Luján was a visionary artist who helped define and promote Chicano art. The founder of the art collective, “Los Four”—which first exhibited Chicano artwork in 1973 at UC Irvine—wrote in 1969, “I believe there is a Chicano Art form and that it has been around for many years without formalization and recognition…Most Chicanos are aware of our current new breed renaissance which has flowered many investigations, probes and introspection in most areas of our life patterns…As we affirm broad-based awareness of...

06 September, 2021 /

In the frostbitten daylight of Wexford, Ireland's lush landscapes, Yevgeniya Mikhailik woke to pieces of freshly baked sourdough bread and hot coffee. After she ate her breakfast, she walked over to the old barn that was converted into an art studio and draw for about four hours.  During this time in Ireland, her studio work was inspired by the vast evergreen scenery that surrounded the cow-house-turned-studio that was built in 1915. For one week, she basked in the rugged terrain and mangled forestry around her at the Cow House Studios...

11 May, 2020 /

In the current exhibition, “Slippage of a Strand,” at Grand Central Art Center in downtown Santa Ana, artist Flavia D’Urso attempts to convey the feelings of a queer woman and how identity and sex can cause feelings of unrest and at times, conflict with others. D’Urso thoughtfully utilizes repetition and replication with her symbolic works of art as she dissects the societal expectations of female and queer identity. There are many expectations in our society for women, including appearances, activities and behaviors. I Will Not Carry You by Flavia D’Urso addresses...

03 March, 2020 /

The second wave feminists of the 1960s famously coined the phrase "the personal is political". This is true of a vast number of issues, yet often times the very personal impact of political policies gets lost in the furious debates about fiscal impacts of laws or the hypothetical scenarios debated on television talk shows. At a time when immigration issues are hotly debated topic in United States politics, art can be a powerful tool that helps us connect to the personal stories within this multifaceted...

29 January, 2014 /

“Do some living and get yourself a typewriter.” ― Charles Bukowski, [caption id="attachment_5505" align="aligncenter" width="545"] Tim Youd at GCAC[/caption] On a recent Friday night Tim Youd sits in front of a small table at the Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana typing away on an Olympia SG-3 electric typewriter, shifting his gaze between the Phillip K. Dick novel to his left and the typewriter keys in front of him. When he reaches the bottom of the page he re-inserts the same sheet back in the typewriter and...

11 December, 2013 /

Written by Jared Millar It was around 1976 that Philip K. Dick moved into a third-story condominium on Civic Center Drive just east of downtown Santa Ana, living and writing there until dying of a massive stroke just months before the release of the Ridley Scott-directed Blade Runner, the first in a long run of Hollywood adaptations of his novels and stories ...

02 November, 2013 /

It’s that time again! The OC Art Walks are happening the first week of November. To help you celebrate after Halloween check out our OC Art Blog guide to the Orange County Art Walks (since October 31st falls on a Thursday Laguna Beach art walk is next week). Street maps for each of the walks with our highlights are below, let us know where you went and tell us some of your favorites.   OC ART BLOG ART WALK GUIDE More information and our photos from the October art...

29 October, 2013 /

Concentrated on the pedestrian Second Street Promenade, Santa Ana had the liveliest street scene with DJs, street performers and multiple bands. The Santora Building has beautiful architecture but the galleries inside can be hit or miss. Get there anytime: from 6 to 10ish p.m. The Crowd: 20’s+, eclectic, families, and students The Art: Large scale installations, artists-in-residence, student art, performance art, video and everything in between What you won’t find: Established commercial artists, street parking Gallery Pick: OCCCA Check out: Cumulus at Grand Central After: Dessert at The Playground on Fourth Street [caption...

09 October, 2013 /

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." If you have had any contact with the Orange County art scene over the past decade then you know what ISM: a community project is, what they do, why they do it and who they are. Right? Well, partially. In the spirit of the above saying by Abraham Lincoln, ISM is as an organization as elusive and open-ended...

06 July, 2012 /

[caption id="attachment_4094" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="The Cut-Off Men"][/caption] Santa Ana, CA.  Downtown Santa Ana Artist’s Village gets a kick in the contemporary art butt with newest creative addition, Grand Central Art Center’s (GCAC) new Director and Chief Curator, John Spiak. Spiak is a whirlwind of creative energies, and his expertise in Relational Aesthetics and Social Practice are giving the Artist’s Village a transformative new take on the art scene in Orange County. Spiak is bringing in artists from all over the world, to engage and exchange with the...

28 June, 2012 /

It is another eventful week! This week we have a lot of art openings in colleges and universities; Irvine Valley College (IVC), University of California, Irvine (UCI), California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), and Chapman University. Check out this calendar for more events!   Don't forget Art Walk in Santa Ana is this Saturday!   Thursday, February 3rd: Irvine Valley College (IVC) Art Gallery Presents: Digital World On view: February 3rd - March 3rd Location: IVC Art Gallery, B1125500 Irvine center Dr.,Irvine, CA 92618  Gallery hours: Tuesday - Friday @1-6PM Opening reception: Thursday, February...

30 January, 2011 /