Born in Seattle, U.S.A. in 1952. Attended Whitman College, majoring in mathematics; the University of Washington in mathematics, art history and studio art; University of California, Berkeley. Studied art history with Rainer Crone, painting with Jacob Lawrence and Michael Spafford, sumi-e with George Tsutakawa, Chinese brush with Hsai Chen. Wrote on art for Vanguard, ArtExpress, High Performance, ArtWeek, Bellevue Journal-American, Seattle Voice. Seattle Arts Commission Special Task Force for media, and Special Task Force for educational Institutions in the late 70s. Taught art history, color theory, life painting, and design at Seattle Central Community College for 5 years before leaving Seattle in 1984. Current studio is in Ventura, California, north of Los Angeles.
Website URL: http://erikreel.com/
Monday, 12 February 2018 09:52
Art Review: Vonder Gray at WAV
Art Review
Vonder Gray at WAV
Vonder Gray's exhibition of new work at the WAV is an important show for this artist, the WAV and the greater Ventura art community. Continuing her recent forays into improvisational abstraction, featuring large, sometimes unstretched, paintings on canvas, the new work is more open, expansive, confident, and larger in conception.
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Visual Arts
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Monday, 13 November 2017 21:05
Art Review: Chagall at LACMA
BEYOND THE 805
Art, Theatre, and Costume Design
Chagall at LACMA
The exhibition Chagall: Fantasies for the Stage at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art [LACMA] on view until 7 January 2018 is a special kind of exhibition. It deals with Chagall’s involvement with specific dance performances during his mature years when he was at the height of his powers drawing from long-held connections to music, stage, and dance. Due to the difficulty of exhibiting this type of material, it is probably, unfortunately, a once-in-a-lifetime experience and may never be repeated.
Installation view, Marc Chagall designed costume for the Magic Flute opera, Chagall: Fantasies for the Stage at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art through 7 January 2018, copyright 2017 Artists Rights Society [ARS] New York / ADAGP Paris. photo: Copyright Fredrik Nilsen.
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Visual Arts
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Monday, 25 September 2017 23:45
Dance: Anaїs by Mixed eMotion Theatrix
Dance
Anaїs by Mixed eMotion Theatrix
9 September 2017 -- The greatest strengths of Anaїs, a Dance Opera, other than the conception and timing of doing this work at this time to begin with, is, first, the work of both the lead dancer, Kate Coleman, and the voice, Holly Sedillos, at its center. Second, the choice of doing it with a minimal set backed by a projection scrim and using live and recorded sound, in short, a multi-media piece.
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Dance
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Wednesday, 06 September 2017 19:44
Review: Becky’s New Car
Theatre
Review
Becky’s New Car
The Santa Paula Theatre Company is currently offering a delightful production of Steven Dietz’s Becky’s New Car, an easy-going farce written for a tight ensemble.
The play is set in summer “in a town very much like Seattle …” and is about a fairly normal middle-class woman, Becky, in a conventional ho-hum marriage. Becky works in an auto dealership while her husband, Joe, runs a roofing business. One day a somewhat disconnected, eccentric billionaire, Walter Flood, enters her office and through a misunderstanding offers Becky the possibility of a somewhat parallel existence.
(l)Scott Blanchard, Cynthia Killion, and Ronald Rezac in Steven Dietz' hilarious comedy BECKY'S NEW CAR playing through October 1 at the Santa Paula Theater Center.
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Performing Arts
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Monday, 04 September 2017 07:00
Review: Steel Magnolias at the Elite
Theatre
Review
Steel Magnolias at the Elite
The play, Steel Magnolias has been a favorite of both professional and community theatre audiences for almost three decades, enjoying somewhat of a rebirth across the country since its revival with a Broadway debut in 2005.
Kim Prendergast as Truvy and Peggy Steketee as Clairee, Elite Theater Co Oxnard, CA
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Performing Arts
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Saturday, 01 July 2017 06:06
Review: McPherson’s Birds
Theatre
Review
The attacks contine as Diane (Kathleen Bosworth ) and Tierney (Allan Noel) struggle to survive in Conor McPherson's apocalyptic thriller THE BIRDS live on stage from June 23 - July 30 at the Santa Paula Theater Center, Santa Paula, CA.
Photo Credit: Brian Stethem Photography
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Performing Arts
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Friday, 09 June 2017 23:06
Review: When We Were Young and Unafraid
Theatre
Review
The play When We Were Young and Unafraid is sort of a local legend. Originally a smaller project workshopped in Ojai, it was eventually produced off-Broadway in 2014. Its author, Sarah Treem has gone on to do television, including writing for Game of Throne, I believe. The play itself is a well-structured, tightly written play set in 1972 about women's issues, featuring four strong women's parts and a token male role. Though set in the 70s it is more relevant today than ever.
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Performing Arts
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Tuesday, 06 June 2017 23:42
Delightful Bob Privitt Show at the Ventura County Museum
Art Review
Delightful Bob Privitt Show at the Ventura County Museum
Bob Privitt's solo show, Manipulations, brings another round of Privitt's well-known and delightful assemblages to the Ventura County Museum. Privitt has also had a solo show of his work at the Tool Room gallery at the Bell Arts Center when it was run by the museum. The current show presents a tighter, more closely related group of small sculpture/assemblages. Though color is not usually a key element in assemblage art, this show uses color very effectively to up the intensity of the visual impact to good effect.
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Visual Arts
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Monday, 15 May 2017 21:06
Jimmie Durham at the Hammer Museum Los Angeles
Art Review
BEYOND THE 805
At the Center of the World
Jimmie Durham at the Hammer Museum Los Angeles
Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World, a retrospective of Durham's work put together by Hammer's curator Anne Ellegood is a superb exhibition, infused with the most marvelously incisive wit and visual cunning.
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Visual Arts
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Monday, 05 June 2017 18:36
Review: Milo's Other Mozart Performance of a Lifetime Comes to Rubicon
Theatre
Review
Beyond Mozart
Milo's Other Mozart Performance of a Lifetime Comes to Rubicon
Milo's Other Mozart Performance of a Lifetime Comes to Rubicon
It is to Karyl Lynn Burns and the Rubicon Theatre's great credit that they have brought Sylvia Milo's truly remarkable performance, The Other Mozart, to Ventura and the Rubicon stage for a limited engagement. This is a very special night of theatre, not to be missed by anyone even remotely interested in seeing a great performance. There is nothing quite like it available anywhere else. Rubicon brings in not only Milo but her entire original production that ran so successfully in New York and London and now tours internationally.
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Performing Arts
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