COMPELLED to CREATE: works from Northern California centers for the disabled.

Featuring work from: Art at Arc Solano (Vallejo), Creativity Explored (San Francisco), Creative Growth (Oakland), NIAD - National Institute of Art & Disabilities (Richmond), and The Neighborhood Center of the Arts (Grass Valley).

Art Exhibition: March 12- April 17, 2005
Art Reception: Sunday, March 20th, 2pm-5pm
Panel Discussion: Saturday, April 9th, 3pm-5pm

Location: Arts Benicia Gallery, 991 Tyler Street, Suite 114, Benicia, CA 94510
Gallery Hours are 12pm - 4pm Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or by arrangement
For more information please call Arts Benicia 707-747-0131 or email info@artsbenicia.org
All activities are free and open to the public. Artwork will be available for purchase.

Arts Benicia proudly presents the curated group exhibition “Compelled to Create: works from five Northern California art programs for the disabled” from March 12 through April 17, 2005 at Arts Benicia Gallery.

The five art studio programs featured include ART at ARC Solano (Vallejo), NIAD-National Institute of Art & Disabilities (Richmond), Creativity Explored (San Francisco), Creative Growth Art Center (Oakland) and The Neighborhood Center of the Arts (Grass Valley). Approximately 125 works from 35 artists will be on view.

The artists in this exhibition are all compelled to create and are making work of rare, vibrant originality. Their artistic voices come straight from their source without encountering distractions of self-consciousness or the inhibitions that mainstream artists must deal with.
Celebrating the creative spirit of artists with disabilities, these art programs provide galleries, studio space, and professional art instruction for hundreds of people with disabilities. Over the years, many have developed into artists with significant bodies of work that are shown and sold nationally and internationally. This is the first time that these five programs have exhibited work together.

The curators, Christine Arthur and Kathryn Weller-Renfrow, toured the centers, meeting many of the artists and working with the directors and instructors to choose pieces by artists who have accomplished work of singular innovativeness. The result is a diverse, exciting exhibit surveying recent work of 35 artists whose talent had been nurtured and developed with the support of these remarkable art organizations.

Christine Arthur, co-curator states, “This is a wonderful opportunity for people to experience an extraordinary collection of paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, fiber art, and ceramics from developmentally disabled yet creatively enabled artists.”

“The compelling thing for me,” states Kathryn Weller-Renfrow, artistic director, “is to see how a talent for art is completely separate, and entirely transcends, all other abilities, physical or mental. It burns like a flame, isolated within the artist, and when it is allowed air it will develop somehow, in spite of many seemingly insurmountable obstacles, to spread it’s glow over the world.”

The exhibit will be available for viewing 12pm-4pm Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays and by arrangement at Arts Benicia Gallery, 991 Tyler Street, Suite 114, in the historic arsenal district of Benicia.

Two additional events accompany this exhibition. An opening reception, honoring the artists, will take place Sunday March 20th, 2pm-5pm. An informal art discussion, including a panel of representatives from each art center, will take place Saturday April 9th, 3pm-5pm. All events will be located at Arts Benicia Gallery.

The small waterfront town of Benicia, a well-known artists’ community, is home to Arts Benicia, a non-profit organization with a contemporary gallery exhibiting the work of selected artists of Northern California. Adjunct activities include an annual open studios weekend, art classes and workshops, slide shows and talks by exhibiting artists, as well as music and literary events.

Arts Benicia is Benicia’s official arts body promoting culture and the arts in the area.

For more information, call Arts Benicia at (707) 747-0131 or visit www.artsbenicia.org

For press photos & interviews, call Arts Benicia (707) 747-0131 or
email: info@artsbenicia.org