Canadian Artist introduced by Desert Art Collection & Sculpture Garden in Palm Desert

Mar 29, 2013
10:00 AM to 5:00 PM

Canandian Artist Introduced by Desert ARt Collection and Sculpture Garden in Palm Desert, California. 

Widely exhibited Canadian artist Cliff Kearns will show his latest collection of painted assemblage and collage in a show titled Images at DesertArtCollection & SculptureGarden on San Luis Rey Avenue at El Paseo in PalmDesert.  The artwork will be shown the month of March.  There will be an artist reception, during the El Paseo Artwalk on Thursday, March 7th, 5-8pm. 

Kearns incorporates numbers and symbols into his collage, as well as working in numbered series.  The common visual elements of numbers and images become the unifying theme.  He believes numbers are facts in life and that they define our world.  “We seem to be a society focused on Image and Measure – from our need to know the amount of money that we and others make and spend or just the time of day – to the number of people lost in a world conflict or die of starvation, and the number of years, months and days we have left to live.  In an art world awash with ‘Images’, the numbers are another way of referencing one from another, much in the way that we as individuals in a larger society are distinguished by a social security number.”

Although sometimes obscure and hidden below the surface, each image in the series contains the shape of a fractured and divided heart, commenting that love and ecstasy can also be the source of significant pain and division.  “In dissecting this universal symbol of love and compassion, positive and negative phenomena are expressed as an integral into the cycle of life,” says the artist.  The dissection of the heart is with a cross, the Christian symbol for sacrifice, symbolizing pain.  “My theory is that the ones you love the most can hurt you the most.”

Maurice Taplinger, a writer for New York City’s “Gallery & Studio” magazine, stated:   “What strikes one most about his pieces is their formal elegance, with assemblage and collage combined with painted textures to achieve an impressive range of tactile contrasts.  Oil paint is employed by the artist to unify his compositions, with sensuously pigmented surfaces and vibrant colors creating a rich aesthetic context for the various 3-D elements, which sometimes include Plexiglas and mirrors that integrate the viewer, as well, by means of reflection.  For all the visual/tactile appeal that makes his mixed media assemblages so consistently engaging, they are also rich in content that the perceptive viewer will invariably find rewarding.”

Mr. Kearns approach to art is cerebral rather than emotional, as Susan Scott, a writer for Visual Art magazine, pointed out in her article October, 2008.  “The work is urban, edgy and bold,” Kearns says.

Cliff spent 40 years as a freelance illustrator.  In his free time he painted highly realistic and very detailed canvases.  At the age of 60 he switched to abstracts.  Almost immediately he started using distressed plywood as a painting base.  He liked the highly textured 3D effect.  He also integrates the printing plates from his past illustrations as well as antique wooden numbers, letterforms, metal pieces, mirrors, strapping, bolts and Plexiglas.  You can readily see the influence of Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Joseph Cornell in the work.

In addition to Canada and New York City, Mr. Kearns has also shown his work in Germany and Turkey.  He works with corporate art consultants in London, Montreal, Toronto and New York.  His artwork can be found in private and corporate collections world-wide, including General Motors of Canada and International Harvester.

Cliff Keans show begins March 1st and continues through the 29th.  The Artist Reception on Thursday, March 7th, is free and open to the public.  For more information call 760/674-9955 or visit the gallery website at www.desertartcollection.com .  DesertArtCollection & SculptureGarden is located at 45-350 San Luis Rey Avenue in the El Paseo gallery and shopping district in PalmDesert, next to the Union Bank.

Desert Art Collection and Sculpture Garden
45350 San Luis Rey Ave. at El Paseo
Palm Desert, CA
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For more information:

Fedderly Companies

Telephone: 760-674-9955
Contact name: Jana

Website: http://www.desertartcollection.com