Athenaeum’s ‘Marking Time’ captures local artists’ pandemic year

For Beliz Iristay, the past year has been a series of ups and downs.

First, two exhibitions of her ceramic-based work were postponed after galleries and art spaces began to close out of concerns about the COVID-19 outbreak. Like many artists, Iristay did her best to stay productive in quarantine at the Valle de Guadalupe estate she shares with her husband, fellow artist Jamex de la Torre.

But then the worst happened.

“I got diagnosed with COVID and then got pneumonia. I had to take a six-month break because I was sick. I wasn’t able to come back to my studio because my lungs were very sensitive,” says Iristay, who often works with clay, which can generate a lot of dust particles. “Half a year passed with the recovery and symptoms.”

Six months later, Iristay says she’s still having difficulty breathing. After she was diagnosed, she was prescribed inhalers to help manage her breathing. If there were any silver linings from all this, she began creating a series of ceramic inhalers and hot-water bottles similar to the ones used for cramps or sickness. She even sent one of the finished inhalers, plated in gold, to then-President Trump.

“I somehow had to react to the situation because it was so frustrating,” says Iristay, who grew increasingly upset with the U.S. health care system.

“Marlboro Man” by Beliz Iristay

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Iristay, along with 48 other artists, will be showing some of her recent work at a new exhibition opening May 15 at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla. The show’s title, “Marking Time: What Athenaeum Artists Create in Quarantine,” is fairly self-explanatory, but library director Erika Torri, who helped curate the exhibition, says there’s a public interest in what artists have been up to since the pandemic began over a year ago.

“It would have seemed like everyone was very low, but it was very exciting to see how everyone responded to it,” says Torri, who says she was inspired by researching how the Athenaeum responded to the 1918 flu pandemic. “Some of (the artists) had some things going already, but for some, the show worked as an extra push for them.”

The “Marking Time” exhibition is the latest in a number of thematic exhibitions showcasing artistic work created or conceived during the pandemic. A quick online search results in dozens of shows all over the U.S. devoted to what artists produced during the past year. Locally, the San Diego Museum of Art recently opened “Paintings from the Confinement,” which features new work from San Diego-based artist Marianela de la Hoz.

The Athenaeum exhibition, on display through July 9, will include mostly regional artists who have been exhibited in the space since 1990 and will be limited to work they produced after March 2020. The participating artists work in a variety of media, including paint, sculpture, installations, photography and more.

Los Angeles artist Mark Licari will present a new series of drawings titled “Adapt to Zoom,” which he says were inspired by visual encyclopedias and “a manifestation of my frustration and reluctance to adapt, adjust and accept a new way of life.”

Prudence Horne’s “Foxglove III” (2021, acrylic and oil on board), part of “Marking Time: What Athenaeum Artists Create in Quarantine,” on display through July 9 at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library.

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“Each drawing represents a letter of the alphabet with a corresponding descriptive word,” Licari says in a statement. “These words tell a story of adaptation, growth, impermanence, resilience and decay, which is as varying and unstable as our ability to communicate with one another.” 

Multidisciplinary artist and recent San Diego Art Prize recipient Perry Vasquez used the past year to expand his “The Ideal Copy” series and work on new music for his ongoing “Gates of Heck” project. As was the case with many artists who also have day jobs, Vasquez says that adapting to pandemic life lost him valuable time he would normally devote to art.

“I was fortunate in that I didn’t lose my job or any income, but I had to adapt to online classes and get certified for distance learning, and all that stuff,” says Vasquez, who teaches art classes full-time at Southwestern College in Chula Vista.

Some of the work in “Marking Time” directly addresses the pandemic head-on, with tones ranging from serious to humorous. While Licari’s drawings and Wick Alexander’s paintings offer a more disconsolate representation of pandemic life, there are also pieces by artists such as Jean Lowe and Prudence Horne, which are vibrant and, in the case of Lowe’s “Diploma” painting, satirical. Overall, Torri feels the exhibition is a suitable representation of the varying ways that artists adjusted over the past year.

“It’s sort of a reflection of what is going on in San Diego,” says Torri, who points out that while some of the participating artists live elsewhere, the majority of the work will be regional. “It’s a wonderful thing to show the public what artists have been working on.”

‘Marking Time’

When: May 15-July 9. 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday for members only. Non-members by appointment.

Where: Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, 1008 Wall St., La Jolla

Phone: (858) 454-5872

Online: ljathenaeum.org

Combs is a freelance writer.

Mark Licari’s “Zoom” (2020, ink, watercolor and pencil on paper), part of “Marking Time: What Athenaeum Artists Create in Quarantine,” on display through July 9 at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library.

(Courtesy)

Sally Hagy-Boyer’s “Untitled” (2020/2021, Cyanotype, fabric and thread. Detail of work in progress), part of “Marking Time: What Athenaeum Artists Create in Quarantine,” on display through July 9 at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library.

(Courtesy)