“No two are alike,” David Pagel wrote within the Los Angeles Times about works featured inside a 2021 show by Roland Reiss, an influential artist within the Southern California art scene.
A professor of art theory, Pagel celebrated Reiss for the “sensuality of materials, the slipperiness of images and … the maximization of visual impact” in the works.
A new exhibition of Reiss’ work, “Roland Reiss: Unapologetic Flowers and Small Stories,” is now open in the Claremont Museum of Art. The exhibition celebrates the artist, that has served in lots of roles during his career-as mentor, colleague, and professor/chair of CGU’s Art Department from 1971 to 2001-and continues to influence lives as a practicing artist today.
Sponsored by university Trustee Emerita Peggy Phelps by 1996 MFA alumna Jane Park Wells and Bill Wells, the exhibition features selections of Reiss’ sculptural tableaux and up to date floral paintings. It provides people from Claremont and surrounding communities a chance to view, close up and personal, the works of an artist whom CGU alumna Lisa Adams once contacted the Huffington Post “a seminal figure” in her own life and “a driving force” at CGU
What Pagel said of Reiss’ 2021 exhibition often happens from the experience with the new exhibit, in that attendees are certain to come away from this exhilarated by “a feeling that anything can be done.”
The exhibit runs until July 8. To learn more visit the Claremont Museum of Art.
