Premiere Reception: Saturday, May 11, 2024, from 4 PM to 6 PM
Exhibition on view from May 11, 2024, to September 8, 2024
Courtesy photo.
SANTA PAULA — The Santa Paula Art Museum is pleased to present “Greenbelt: Interplay and Imagination on the Edge of Wildness,” a solo exhibition by Ojai artist Christopher Noxon, opening Saturday, May 11, 2024, with a premiere party from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. Admission to the premiere event is $5.00 for SPAM members and $10.00 for non-members. “Greenbelt” will be on view from May 11, 2024, to September 8, 2024.
In this first one-person show of paintings by Ojai author-turned-artist Christopher Noxon, “Greenbelt” showcases the vibrant visions of an artist processing the interplay of wildness, development, and agriculture in Ventura County. Inspired by Fauvist landscapes, Huichol yarn paintings, and activists working to protect open space, Noxon creates semi-abstract pictures of familiar scenes filtered through a phantasmagorical lens, focusing on the places where mountains and orchards share space with housing and highways. The exhibit includes 25 works created over the last three years using oil, acrylic, collage, and ink, ranging in size and scope from sketchbook doodles to large canvases described by the LA Weekly as “riotously chromatic and time-and-space bending.”
Christopher Noxon paints and writes in Ojai, California. He began painting seriously in midlife, after raising kids and working as a journalist and illustrator in Los Angeles. Sullivan Goss Gallery in Santa Barbara featured his work in the 2023 exhibit “Betty Lane & Christopher Noxon: From One Generation to the Next.” His work is in the permanent collection of the Ojai Valley Museum and he’s shown at Gallery 825 in Los Angeles, the Santa Paula Art Museum, and the Beatrice Woods Center for the Arts. His writing and illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and New York Times Magazine; books include Good Trouble: Lessons from the Civil Rights Playbook, Can We Talk About Israel?: A Guide for the Curious, Confused and Conflicted?, Plus One: A Novel, and Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes and the Reinvention of the American Grown-Up.
About the Santa Paula Art Museum — The Santa Paula Art Museum occupies two historic buildings located at 117 N. 10th Street and 123 N 10th Street in downtown Santa Paula. The Museum features rotating exhibitions of historic and contemporary art, art classes for children and adults, creative community events, a well-curated gift shop, and more. Regular museum hours are Wednesday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and Sunday from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Regular admission is $4.00 for adults, $3.00 for seniors, and free for kids, students, and SPAM members.