Color & Quirk

"Color & Quirk"

Aug 25, 2025 to Nov 20, 2025

Location: Kellogg University Art Gallery

Introduction Program Schedule The Artists Selected Works Installation Views Reception Views

promotional image for upcoming Color & Quirk exhibition.

Color & Quirk is more than just an art exhibition: it is a unique gathering of bold artists who make equally and exceptionally bold work. Stimulating the eye with its candy-coated colors, rainbow ribbons, and interconnected webs of linearity, texture, light and space, these artists take us on a satisfyingly decadent journey through a world of abstraction. And when assembled in the same place, their oeuvre, individually and collectively, generate a visually tactile explosion that feeds both mind and soul.

This exhibition brings together ten distinctive artists, well-established mid-career and successfully emerging, each offering their own interpretation of how color behaves, interacts and engages. Rather than adhering to strict formal rules, and the traditional forms of media, these innovators create their work in the most distinctive and unusual ways, using uncommon materials and methodologies they alone have conceived, developed and mastered. Each artist invites the viewer into their particularly personal, sometimes humorous, often intimate, and always profound dialogue with abstraction.

With the conduits of pigment (color) and peculiarity (quirk), these artists take us on an effortless and ingestible exploration that is both organic and geometric. Usually thought of as opposites, these two forms of abstraction merge together in harmonious and jubilant cacophony. Fragile surfaces are interlaced with façades so slick and glossy that each playfully fuels the other while piquing curiosity with surreal machinations. What at one moment seems like a delicate wood grain-like surface, the next transforms itself into a color-saturated landscape. Delicate threads draped from above dance like the branches of a willow, while tightly constructed linear strands erect skyscraperesque structures. A shiny sphere surrounded by floating circular objects becomes their own solar system, while arcs and archways become splinters of galaxies and times long gone. While squares within squares transfigure themselves into optical illusions, tiny fragments of calcite become constellations. And all the while, fused circles push, pull and transform into molecules, compounds, zygotes and cells.

Whether by using intricately tight, or loosely interwoven lacelike patterns, soft and fleeting organic shapes and geometric architectonics, or through compositions animating, emitting, reflecting or refracting light, these artists’ and their artwork reveal the way saturated and subdued color, combined with innovation and ingenuity, can herald the imagination, deliver surprising emotions, trigger unexpected memories, generate provocative thoughts and curious sensations, spawn unanticipated discourse and, of utmost importance to many during these difficult times, impart some well-needed joy.

Michele Cairella Fillmore, Curator

Kellogg University Art Gallery

Huntley Gallery

Art & Design Collections

College of Environmental Design

Saturday, Sept. 6th, 2025 (4-6PM)

Color & Quirk Exhibition

Color & Quirk will be on display at the Kellogg University Art Gallery (Building 35A) beginning Monday, August 25th!

Saturday, Sept. 6th, 2025 (4-6PM)

Color & Quirk |

Artists' Reception

Join us at the Kellogg University Art Gallery (Building 35A) on Saturday, September 6, 2025, from 4 to 6 p.m. for a special Artist Reception celebrating Color & Quirk, offering visitors the opportunity to meet the creative minds behind the exhibit.

Tuesday, November 18, 2025 (4-6PM)

Color & Quirk |

Closing Reception

Join us as we celebrate the final week of this bold and visually striking exhibition with the campus community on Tuesday, November 18, 2025, from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Kellogg University Art Gallery (Building 35A).

KELSEY BROOKES

Man with long blond hair and beard, wearing a light-colored graphic T-shirt seated beside five colorful abstract paintings on a white wall. — Photo Credit: Lile Kvantaliani

Artist Biography
Brookes was born in 1978 in Denver, Colorado and attended Colorado State University where he studied Biochemistry and pursued life as a scientist. Kelsey spent 2002 surfing nomadically in Australia. Upon returning from Australia he moved from Colorado to San Diego, California. In 2005, Brookes left the sciences to become a full-time artist, and blames his raw, anxious artform “on the U.S. university system which refuses to teach its scientists how to draw."

Brookes has had solo exhibitions in La Jolla, Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, London and Berlin. His work is featured as the cover art for the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ 2012 I’m With You 7”LP, and The Flaming Lips’ 2013 Stone Roses LP, and several psychedelic album covers for Santa Cruz indie band Grand Ole Party. Brookes has teamed up with RVCA, Vans, Vuori and Insight 51, among others for numerous artistic and collaborative projects. His paintings are featured in the publications Skull Style: Skulls in Contemporary Art and Design, Go West!: Cutting-edge creative in the United States. Kelsey Brookes: Psychedelic Space is the first monograph of the artist’s artwork and examines three years of work and four solo exhibitions.

His work belongs in esteemed private collections, as well as the public permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation.

FREDDY CHANDRA

Man sitting on couch with his two large brown dogs. — Photo Credit: Courtesy of Artist

Artist Biography
Freddy Chandra is an Indonesian American visual artist, born in Jakarta in 1979, who spent the initial part of his career living, studying and teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area. He completed his undergraduate studies in Architecture & Art Practice from the University of California at Berkeley; and obtained his MFA in Studio Art from Mills College in Oakland. He has taught as Art Faculty at both Mills and Berkeley. In 2009 he was a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant. Further, he has been awarded various residencies and fellowships throughout the US. He regularly exhibits work in the US, Canada and Europe and is represented in private, public and corporate collections nationally and internationally including the Art in Embassies Program, at the US consulate in Indonesia.

MEGAN GECKLER

Smiling woman with long, wavy dark hair, wearing a red textured top, in front of a colorful blurred background with pink, purple, and orange tones. — Photo Credit: Courtesy of Artist

Artist Biography
Megan Geckler is an American artist born is 1975, in Abington, Pennsylvania and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. She received her BFA from Temple University's Tyler School of Art, Elkins Park, PA in 1998, and her MFA from Claremont Graduate University in 2001.

Her large-scale, site-specific installations and drawings have been exhibited internationally at Customs House (Sydney, NSW, Australia), Paris Fashion Week (Paris, France), and The Courtauld Institute (London, United Kingdom). In America, she has mounted large-scale, site-specific installations at venues such as the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Wexner Center for the Arts, Museum of Art and History, Laguna Art Museum, Vincent Price Museum of Art, Torrance Art Museum, and Pasadena Museum of California Art. Geckler has been awarded multiple public art commissions including projects at the LAX Airport and three new retail/housing developments in Woodland Hills, CA. Geckler was awarded the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Mid-Career Fellowship by the Department of Cultural Affairs in 2016. Her work is in the corporate collections of Creative Artists Agency, Four Seasons Resort at Walt Disney World, Nike, Human Rights Campaign, eBay, SoulCycle, and Facebook.

Her artworks have been profiled by ArtForum, O Magazine, The Washington Post, Interior Design Magazine, Colossal, The Sydney Morning Herald, Fabrik, LA Weekly, The Creators Project, Designboom, Artillery, Elle Decor Italia, Los Angeles Times, The Getty Research Institute Newsletter, The Associated Press, Art Ltd., Huffington Post, Artweek LA, ArchDaily, ArtUS, ArtDaily, The Columbus Dispatch, Artscene, Design Milk, Flavorpill, and Glasstire, among many others.

ANDY MOSES

Artist Biography
Born in Los Angeles in 1962, Andy Moses attended the legendary CalArts from 1979-1981, studying with John Baldessari, Michael Asher and Barbara Kruger. In 1982, Moses moved to New York where he worked as a studio assistant to Pat Steir and quickly became part of New York’s nascent art scene. Moses began exhibiting with Annina Nosei Gallery, shortly after Jean-Michel Basquiat. During that time Moses also developed close ties with artists such as Jeff Koons, Marilyn Minter, Rudolf Stingel and Christopher Wool, who were also just emerging onto the scene.

After eighteen years in New York, Moses returned to Southern California in 2000, where the change in coasts led to a significant shift in his work. In New York, the artist’s work had explored the macro / micro influences of nature, conveying a sense of gravitational and geologic forces. In returning to California, the scope of Moses’s work expanded, as he was once again inspired by the unique effects of light glancing off waves, and the vast skyscapes he encountered on his daily drive down the Pacific Coast Highway. The artist began exploring materials that would capture the mercurial aspects of perception, where slight shifts in perspective would reveal dramatic shifts in impression. Accordingly, Moses’ work began to incorporate many of the qualities now associated with the Southern California Light and Space movement, where the work of art became less an “art object”, and more of a “catalyst” for one’s experience of what and how they are perceived. Suggesting panoramic space, Moses began introducing concave and shaped panels to further investigate how light and its wavelengths would curl and flex with refractive paints. These bold new paintings quickly found their audience and brought Moses to the attention of museums and major collectors alike.

Andy Moses’ work is included in the permanent collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Orange County Museum of Art, Laguna Art Museum, and the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation. He currently lives and works in Venice, CA.

JACK REILLY

Man with short gray hair and glasses, standing in front of a large circular artwork with a green and blue center surrounded by colorful textured rings, wearing a light blue patterned shirt and orange sneakers. — Photo Credit: Courtesy of Artist

Artist Biography
Born in 1950, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jack Reilly is known for his paintings on shaped canvas structures, seductive illusionism, and signature brushwork. His work is widely collected and exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the world. He is recognized as an original artist of the 1970s Abstract Illusionism movement, and one of the foremost painters working in shaped canvas today.

Shortly after receiving his MFA from Florida State University in 1978, Jack Reilly came to Los Angeles where his career began when his paintings were discovered by prominent LA gallerist Molly Barns. His work has since been exhibited in numerous galleries and museums including USC Fisher Museum, Denver Art Museum, Oakland Museum, Palm Springs Museum, Ventura County Museum of History and Art, Johnson Museum at Cornell, and Honolulu Academy of Arts, among other prominent institutions nationwide. He is recipient if a National Endowment for the Arts Grant. Articles and reviews on Reilly's paintings are published in numerous periodicals including Arts Magazine, Art Week, the Los Angeles Times, New York Artworld, and in books including American Art Now, Inside the L.A. Artist, and Introduction to Design. In addition to Reilly's long-standing career as an exhibiting painter, he is Professor Emeritus at California State University Channel Islands and currently maintains studios in California and Florida.

COLIN ROBERTS

Photo Credit: Tasha Caday

Artist Biography
Roberts' was born in Fullerton, California in 1974 and received his BFA from Otis School of Art and Design in 2001. He has since exhibited his work in over 100 exhibitions. His Roberts’ work has exhibited internationally, is included in numerous private collections worldwide and his psychedelic works have earned him more than 35,000 followers on Instagram. His artwork has also been utilized in conjunction with some of the world's most renowned artists and designers, including Maison Martin Margiela and Johnston Marklee Architects.

Roberts has had solo exhibitions at Steve Turner Gallery, Patricia Faure Gallery and Monte Vista Projects and participated in exhibitions at The Skirball Cultural Center, Mark Moore Gallery, June Lee Contemporary, Gavin Brown's Passerby Gallery, NY, the Torrance Art Museum, The Depart Foundation, LAMAG, Wolf and Galentz, Berlin, and many others. He is a proud resident of LA and is the Founder and Director of LAVA Projects Art Gallery, Los Angeles.

SEDA SAAR

Woman with shoulder-length light brown hair standing behind a blue glass sphere that is warping her face. — Photo Credit: Courtesy of Artist

Artist Biography
Saar was born in Teheran, in 1961 and raised in United Kingdom, where she received her undergraduate degree in Interior Architecture from London Metropolitan University. Later in US, she studied at Art Center College of Design creating environmental designs, inspired by the science fiction, light, and landscape. After a career as a themed entertainment designer for major Hollywood studios, Saar turned from environment design to public art, producing installations that played with perception, color, and transparency.  With over three decades as a veteran industry professional her studio experience was spent designing and directing a variety of architectural environments for themed interiors, dining and retail, show-set and attraction design.

Saar is also a Certified Interior Designer, production designer and a freelance concept designer.  The experiences inform her as a Fine Artist and often allows her to enjoy collaborations with many experts and other creatives in a variety of fields. As a Los Angeles-based artist this background in interior architecture and experiential design, contributes to how she produces her paintings, sculptures, and installations that blur the boundary between material form and spiritual presence.

Recent exhibitions include Revelations: Seeing Light at Gallery 825; and Pacific Passage, a 36-foot wall-mounted site-specific installation at San Diego International Airport. Her work is held in public, private, and institutional collections in the U.S., Japan, Armenia, the UK, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates.

LARISA SAFARYAN

Woman with long curly hair wearing a strapless black dress and gold jewelry, standing in front of a colorful abstract painting featuring swirling textures and rolled paper elements. — Photo Credit: Courtesy of Artist

Artist Biography
Born in Yerevan, Armenia in 1985, Larisa Safaryan's artistic journey began outside the walls of traditional art education. Inspired by her father, Nairi Safaryan, a renowned wood sculptor, she charted her path. Her academic pursuits in Psychology and Public Management provided a distinct perspective, enriching her art with a nuanced understanding of humanity. Unbound by formal art schooling, Safaryan embraces the freedom to explore, forging her techniques and carving a unique artistic identity, showcasing her inventive spirit.

In 2016, Larisa Safaryan founded the Wood Symphony Gallery. Wood Symphony Gallery represents artists from around the world, focusing its efforts on the emerging field of fine contemporary wood art. In 2021, Larisa co-founded Wood Symphony Design to focus on how well-crafted work can be combined within spaces to spotlight their unmatched artistry, with enhanced functionality. The mission of Wood Symphony Design is to inspire people to live an aesthetic life by bringing art into their everyday lives.

Currently residing and creating in Los Angeles, California, Safaryan continues to push boundaries, offer fresh narratives through her unconventional art, and captivating audiences with her distinctive approach and unwavering creativity.

NIKE SCHRÖDER

Artist Biography
Nike Schröder (also known as Schroeder) was born in 1981 in Hamburg, Germany. She earned her BA in Art Therapy/Fine Arts from the University of Applied Sciences in Ottersberg in 2009 and maintained a studio practice in Berlin before relocating to Los Angeles in 2012.

She has held solo exhibitions in Germany and has been featured in museum exhibitions at the Children’s Museum of the Arts in New York, the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Park, and the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster, California. Schröder has also participated in numerous group exhibitions.

Her work has been exhibited at several galleries, including Walter Maciel Gallery (Los Angeles), Jack Fischer Gallery (San Francisco), Gudberg Nerger Gallery (Hamburg), Nadelwald (Berlin), and Bahnhof Ottersberg (Germany).

PHILIP VAUGHAN

Older man with glasses and a blue cap, wearing a gray long-sleeve shirt, standing with arms crossed in front of four black and white abstract landscape drawings taped to a white wall. — Photo Credit: Courtesy of Artist

Artist Biography
Philip Vaughan has had a prolific career: from oversized public neon works shown on the Southbank in London in 1972, to shows at the Royal Academy of Arts and the Serpentine Gallery, in London, and the Walker Gallery in Liverpool. Currently in his 80s, Vaughan continues his craft, working on a series of charcoal and pastel works on paper and showing his animated neon sculpture in galleries in the US.

Vaughan was born in 1945 and brought up in France, the son of English parents. He went to boarding school in England at the ripe age of nine. There he met Gordon Taylor, an extraordinary art teacher and modernist, his first mentor at Brighton College who started him on a lifelong love of architecture and painting and sculpture. Vaughan studied Architecture at Cambridge and then later transferred, graduating from the Chelsea School of Art. 

He worked for some years teaching at the City of London University while he experimented with inflatables and kinetics. While he was there, he built a 42ft ocean-going sailing boat in Rotherhithe, east London. In 1979, he sailed that boat across the Atlantic. Shortly after landing in Florida, he started working for Walt Disney Imagineering designing animatronic creatures, rides, and sets for theme parks. 

Philip Vaughan lives in Altadena, Los Angeles, working on sculpture, drawings, paintings and public art commissions. Most recently he has been working a lot in gardens and using natural materials like bamboo. He continues to plan and build public sculptures, using light and other media.