OPENING RECEPTION - SUSANNAH BETTAG INSTALLATION: DROWNING WITHOUT YOU

Please join us for the opening reception of Montalvo Arts Center's newest installation!

Montalvo Arts Center is proud to host Bay Area artist Susanna Bettag’s most ambitious installation thus far, Drowning Without You, on view in the Project Space through January 2009. Bettag has recently been featured in 7x7 and Art Ltd magazines and appeared on KQED’s Spark. Her paintings and mixed media works have been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Hong Kong. In 2008, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento acquired Now is the Time to Dance Upon the Earth for its permanent collection. 

A frequent character in Bettag’s paintings is her adorable “Little Boo,” who offers, as Scott Shields, contemporary curator at the Crocker Art Museum put it, “an intellectual reckoning with the culture of cuteness.” Boo is the centerpiece of Drowning Without You, an installation that features approximately 1,400 vinyl doll Boos spilling from the ceiling in a massive hourglass-shaped swarm.

Bettag will offer a 30-minute informal lecture on Drowning Without You and the trajectory of her art practice in general, followed by Q&A with the audience. Refreshments and snacks will be served.

Concurrent with her installation at Montalvo, Frey Norris Gallery will present a solo exhibition of her newest artwork entitled Things You Shouldn’t See. It runs from October 2 to November 2, 2008, at their gallery near Union Square in San Francisco.

Bettag is represented by Frey Norris Gallery.