The Fine Arts Buildings of Cal State Long Beach are located on the southernmost side of the sprawling 3 mile campus. These Mid-Century modern buildings, designed by architect Edward Killingsworth, are beautifully integrated with trees and the most incredible staghorn ferns hang from giant pots suspended from outdoor beams. Rectangular chunks of granite are tipped over in various places to form benches and the doors to the graduate student galleries are open wide revealing work that is interesting and well done. It is a beautiful spot to create art and a noteworthy place to study.
Amongst all this, on the top floor of the largest building, artist Yevgeniya Mikhailik has her own studio, a small and lovingly decorated space. Situated in a room with other small studios, hers is in the corner, against the aluminum framed windows, bursting with golden light that illuminates the moody, earthen drawings and watercolors that lean against the concrete walls. A paper palette filled with pigments of olive green and mahogany rests on a high stool next to a drafting table and there, on a makeshift shelf of cardboard taped along the bottom is a 8 x 8 inch square of illustration board. On the board is an entire mountain, a work in progress.
Mountains take an incredibly long time to create. There exists in every ridge and range a story so deep, so molten, that nothing about that mountain can qualify as being exactly about that mountain. Only of the mountain or around it or through it or upon it. Yevgeniya’s work is no different. Every single creature, structure or geological form she creates, set in forests of line and texture, speak to you. The stories go on for centuries and like mountains you cannot begin to find the beginning or the end of them.
Yevgeniya’s work will be shown along with 8 other incredible artists at the upcoming exhibition WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS…, November 17th – December 22nd, 2012 at the Ar4t Gallery in Laguna Beach. More information on that exhibit can be found at ar4t.com.
Pictured above: (1) Yevgeniya Mikhailik, The Monk, 12 x 9 inches, watercolor, ink and pencil on claybord (2) Yevgeniya Mikhailik, Yetis Blanket, 24 x 18 inches, watercolor, ink and pencil on claybord (3) Yevgeniya Mikhailik, Hide and Seek, 8 x 10 inches, watercolor, ink and pencil on claybord / Pictured below: Yevgeniya Mikhailik, House Ghost, 16 x 12 inches, watercolor, ink and pencil on claybord.
