Faculty Exhibit Kicks off Reopening of RAFFMA

The Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art (RAFFMA) will join California State University, San Bernardino in its 50th anniversary celebration with a special art exhibition this month. RAFFMA will kick off the 2015-2016 academic year by presenting the artwork of CSUSB professors Katherine Gray, Brad Spence and Alison Petty Ragguette with three exhibitions Sept. 21-Oct. 24: “A Rainbow Like You,” “Horse Play,” and “Dangerous Play,” respectively. There will be an opening reception on Thursday, Oct. 1, 5-7 p.m. Additionally, RAFFMA will celebrate the reopening of its newly redesigned exhibition and education space, which has been under renovation for the past year. In “A Rainbow Like You,” Gray, an associate professor of art, incorporates bright theatrical spotlights shining through an assortment of pre-existing and blown glassware, creating projections on the walls above and behind that reveal uncomfortable truths about the relationship between production, consumption and the natural environment. Gray’s works are included in the permanent collections of the Corning Museum of Glass, Museum of American Glass and the Tacoma Museum of Glass. She is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and received her M.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design. In “Horse Play,” Spence, an associate professor of art, mixes American mythology and personal memory to portray the lingering presence of past experiences. Spence draws from his childhood in rural Pennsylvania spent at the “last house at the end of a long road,” tending to crops and livestock. In this series, Spence’s process involved adding elements to the artworks that were later covered or removed completely, which, according to Spence, is “the most important part of the story – the part that is gone but still felt.” Spence has exhibited extensively in Los Angeles as well as in Germany, Norway, Istanbul, Turkey, New York, N.Y., and Paris, France. He is a graduate of the University of Florida and received his M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts. Petty Ragguette, an associate professor of art, draws inspiration from biomechanics, the technology of life and the mechanical world of nature for the large-scale installations featured in “Dangerous Play.” Her playful yet mysterious artworks propose a duality between the organic and technological while examining the truth that, despite our best efforts, the natural world is beyond our control. Petty Ragguette’s work has been included in more than 50 national and international exhibitions, including her most recent solo exhibition at the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago, Ill., and Object Gallery in Pomona. Petty Ragguette is a graduate of Concordia University in Montreal and received her M.F.A. at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco.