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Santa Monica College Gallery to Host Local Artist's Retrospective

Frank Gruber for City Council

Ted Winterer for City Council 2012

Santa Monica Real Estate Company, Roque and Mark

Re-elect Robert Kronovet for Rent Control Board

Pico Business Improvement District
7th Annual Pico Festival
Sunday, October 28th

By Lookout Staff

October 16, 2012 -- The Pete & Susan Barrett Art Gallery will host the work of award-winning Santa Monica Artist Martha Alf starting October 27.

The exhibition, called “Martha Alf: Retrospective of Paintings, Prints, Drawings & Photographs” will run through the month of November and will feature a wide selection of the prolific artist's work.

Alf, who lives in Santa Monica, “has become known for her cylinder painting of everyday household items transformed into mysterious objects for which the viewer often has reverence,” SMC officials said, adding that Los Angeles Times critic William Wilson once said, “Martha Alf may be the only artist who ever made a roll of toilet paper look metaphysical.”

The show will include work done by Alf -- who has won a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Artist grant and has had her work displayed all over the country -- over the past 40 years.

The retrospective will kick-off on October 27 with an opening reception from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., allowing the public to get a glimpse of Alf's work.

“I found that by placing simple objects on a flat plane with a plain background they immediately assumed heightened power,” she said of her work. “Lit from one side by daylight they looked as if they were universal symbols. The simpler the object the greater was the transformation from mundane to awesome power.”

Alf has “had her work exhibited since 1972 in solo and group shows all over the U.S., including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago,” officials said. She has also “been featured and reviewed extensively in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, Artweek, Smithsonian Magazine and Architectural Digest.”

The gallery is located in the SMC Performing Arts Center on Santa Monica Boulevard at 11th Street and is open from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday.

For information, call (310) 434-3434.

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