In the foothills of San Bernardino sits the crown jewel of the Inland Empire’s education system, California State University, San Bernardino. A place where coyotes roam, and a budding art community is finding its foothold. Every year, the on-campus art museum, the Robert and Frances Fuller Museum of Art, hosts a variety of exhibitions from the larger art community and shows featuring students. This past November, RAFFMA’s Dutton Gallery held a show by local artist and now graduated MFA student Amanada Santos. Titled ‘Adaptive Compulsion,’ the show consisted of colorful glass, paper pulp, and ceramic sculptures.
When viewers first walk into the gallery, they are hit with color. It’s everywhere. On the wall, in the pieces, on the pedestals. In most museum exhibitions, the walls and pedestals would be white. Allowing the viewer’s eyes a moment of rest. Here your eyes will not rest, or if they do, they will not rest easily. Some viewers will find that visual anxiety overwhelming, and for some, a welcome break from the white cube. Disruption is not used for shock value but to create an environment for these pieces to live. The first and last piece one encountered were “Sanitization Stations”. Large rectangular-like forms that mimicked hand dryers from the early 2000s have begun growing extra limbs. Both were covered in polka dots and paper pulp balls. With a dish below them to catch the excess hand sanitizer that came out of the bottom when you reached your hand in. The set of two created bookends to a show that focused on the viral, in the medical sense.
Going through the exhibition, one can’t help but notice two full-wall installations that look like large petri dishes. Growing flamboyant colors of glass that look like something you would find under a microscope. In her artist statement, Santos writes, “I am fascinated with the microscopic and its metaphor for anxiety.” Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the work is how the artist takes this deeply instilled fear to create work that can feel whimsical and terrifying depending on the viewer. The ambition of this show is everywhere. From the use of ceramic and glass, to the mismatched walls and pedestals. Nothing in this show was safe from the artist’s hand, including the ceiling.
Most would assume the last thing an artist who works with breakable materials would do is suspend from the ceiling. However, in the middle of the exhibition, Santos displayed floating glass sculptures. Far enough off the ground so that there’s no danger of someone hitting their head, but high enough to create visual tension. Underneath the hanging forms were not crash pads but large-scale sculptures. Featuring interlocking ceramics, glass, and bead-like paper pulp.
These massive sculptures echoed the exhibition’s commitment to color and texture. The multi-level ones provide structure where needed, with a wonderful surprise, a sickly fruity scent that reminds you of a pediatrician’s office. The interconnection of these pieces and the larger body of work is an interesting look into how biomorphic shapes make us feel. The scale of the pedestal works vary from multiple feet tall to something that can be held in your hands. All feels wrong in the sense of being a germ or virus. We are confronted with these shapes that are usually confined to our high school biology class, now at a perceivable size. For some that will terrify them, for others, the animated shapes and colors thrill them.
Art should always respond to something in the world as we know it today. In a post-COVID world, we have become hyperaware to the diseases and illnesses that once seemed so benign. Adaptive Compulsion creates a world that meditates on those complexities. For some, this will trigger an anxiety that can only be soothed through removing oneself from the gallery. For some, it will bring a sense of calm. The bright colors and playful forms can soothe them with a sense of whimsy. According to the artist, anxious people tend to be the ones soothed by this work. Finding tranquility in a world of bright polka dots. While calmer minds find the dots and loudness distracting. To me, that is the beauty of this work. Creating a bodily sensation within its viewers that speaks to something deeper than aesthetics. Asking the viewer where the line is between adaptation and compulsion?