Artist Jim Skuldt debuts
‘Water & Power’
By Kristen Garza
Staff Writer
At a time when water is a hot topic in Kern County, California State University, Bakersfield has the pleasure of exhibiting creative genius Jim Skuldt’s “Water & Power” collection in the Todd Madigan Gallery.
Skuldt’s topic of water coincidently comes to Bakersfield amid the recent declaration of drought.
The inspiration for Skuldt’s “Water & Power” designs derived from his survey of the Mojave Desert region between Las Vegas and Bakersfield.
The group of digital photographs known as “Dry Lakes, Wet Shapes” juxtapose one another and include both schematic and aerial satellite views taken from Google Maps.
The photographs reveal residential and agricultural land in and around Bakersfield that are suspected of suffering from a water shortage, but the photographs prove otherwise.
Skuldt’s rendition of the mismanagement of water in the Central Valley by the government is represented uniquely with digital imagery as his media. These images invoke intrigue and a thirst for answers from the government by the viewer.
Skuldt displays one particular photo with a large body of water surrounded by a gated community drawing suspicions that water may be collected for the wealthy.
The exhibit also includes a giant wall of grass known as “American Sod” and a boat made of recycled barrels known as “Modular Water Craft.”
“He combines an engineer’s or city planner’s approach with the imagination of an adolescent to solve problem conditions in his own personal space or, alternately, on the scale of the world,” Anne Martens, author of “Jim Skuldt: Mapping, Graphing, and Diagramming” said.
Each year CSUB art students are given the opportunity to learn from and assist an artist from conception to completion on an exhibit. The following students from Professor Joey Kotting’s class collaborated with Skuldt: Sara Bergh, Robyn Dyer, Josiah Ihem, Donald Myers, Jennifer Ritchaona and Annie Thunberg.
Thunberg, 20, an art history major, summarizes that their assignment as Skuldt’s assistants was to: “research, put the show together, and arrange and hang the artwork.”
The students are also present in the gallery to answer visitor questions about the work.
Robyn Dyer, a 29-year-old studio art major, adds what she enjoyed about the experience: “I liked working with my peers and the finished product. Also, that he [Skuldt] wanted to be spontaneous and the outcome to be a surprise.”
In addition, Thunberg was pleased that Skuldt taught them some techniques during the process.
Skuldt received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts. When he’s not exhibiting, he works as an art instructor at University of California Los Angeles.
Skuldt has a myriad of accomplishments, performances and exhibitions. His work has been showcased at a number of venues including the Elizabeth Foundation in New York and Friche la Belle de Mai in Marseille, France.
The “Water & Power” exhibition runs until March 15. Admission is free and the gallery is open for viewing Tuesday through Thursday from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. in the Todd Madigan Gallery.
