Merced arts center to open new exhibition

A new gallery featuring up-and-coming as well as established artists is set to open this month in the Merced Multicultural Arts Center’s Arbor Gallery.

The opening night reception will be 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the center, 645 W. Main St. Entrance is free. The exhibit will run through Jan. 9.

The gallery will feature the work of local artist Martin Castro, whose exhibit “Between Spaces” is a series that challenges the themes of identity, alienation and the unknown. “The objects and images presented question how we as individuals choose to perceive the world in our current technological age,” Castro said in a press release.

He said he developed the exhibit based on his experience and his feelings about the uncertainty of the future.

Another local artist, Elaine Sachs, will present her first gallery show, “Walking Govetts Leap.” The show explores Sachs’ time in Australia. Govetts Leap is a lookout point onto the Grose Valley area of the Blue Mountains in Australia.

She spent time in the region in 2011 while she worked on painting landscapes. “It was a difficult year of solitude, which took my work to places I did not expect,” she said.

Fresno artist Edwin Macaraeg’s show, “The Disambiguation of Asian-American History,” is an attempt to better understand history independent of the Western world’s perspective.

“My experience as an Asian-American has led to my investigations of how and why misconceptions and other social patterns can be traced to particular historical events,” he said, in a press release.

He conducted interviews of families directly affected by and involved in the Korean War and Battle of Bataan, studied articles written from multiple sources and researched U.S. history books while making his art.

The artists of the Arbor Gallery will also exhibit their work in “The Really Big Show.”

The semiannual exhibit allows the artists of the nonprofit Arbor Gallery to explore the use of the larger open gallery. The exhibit will include traditional, fiber and mixed-media pieces.

For more information about the exhibit or the Merced County Arts Council, go to www.artsmerced.org, find the council on Facebook or call (209) 388-1090.

This story was originally published November 14, 2014 at 5:54 PM with the headline "Merced arts center to open new exhibition."