SAN JOSE, California (December 2, 2010)— A new work by artist Benicia Gantner will go on view at the San Jose Museum of Art beginning December 7. The site-specific installation, called Scaffolding + Sky (2010), will surround the elevator on the Museum’s second floor skybridge. The whimsical scene is made of vinyl that Gantner cuts both by hand and by computer. The artist will install Scaffolding + Sky on December 5 and 6. This work will be on view throughout 2011.

Gantner’s flattened vinyl landscapes are saturated with color and filled with both abstract and recognizable natural forms. She has said of her work: “These imagined spaces are like flashes of a dream, or déjà vu—both familiar and alien, shaped by the specificity of my own observations of the natural world and the drive to conjure new spaces to explore.”

Now based in Marin, Gantner received a degree in studio art and religion from Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, and an MFA in printmaking from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at the Oakland Museum of California and the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery.

Scaffolding + Sky has been purchased with funds from William and Barbara Hyland, Monterey, California

SAN JOSE MUSEUM OF ART

The San Jose Museum of Art is a distinguished museum of modern and contemporary art and a lively center of arts activity in Silicon Valley. The leading institution in the area dedicated to the art of our time, SJMA is committed to providing access for its extraordinarily diverse populations and to pioneering new approaches to interpretation.  The San Jose Museum of Art is located at 110 South Market Street in downtown San Jose, California. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for students and senior citizens, and free to members and children under 6. For more information, call 408-271-2787 or visit www.SanJoseMuseumofArt.org.

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Programs at the San Jose Museum of Art are generously supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, by operating support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation; the James Irvine Foundation; the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; the Adobe Foundation; and the Koret Foundation; the MetLife Foundation; and a Cultural Affairs grant from the City of San Jose.