{"id":79341,"date":"2026-02-19T19:29:04","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T03:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=79341"},"modified":"2026-02-19T19:29:04","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T03:29:04","slug":"as-if-in-a-dream-history-fantasy-future-opens-at-sbma-march-8-an-exploration-of-how-artists-merge-memory-with-imagination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=79341","title":{"rendered":"AS IF IN A DREAM: HISTORY, FANTASY, FUTURE OPENS AT SBMA MARCH 8 AN EXPLORATION OF HOW ARTISTS MERGE MEMORY WITH IMAGINATION"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n
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SANTA BARBARA, Calif.<\/strong> \u2013 The Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) is pleased to announce\u00a0As if in a Dream: History, Fantasy, Future<\/em>, an exhibition where landscapes and portraits rooted in personal associations and uncanny figures show how fleeting experiences can be transformed into inventive new worlds.\u00a0As if in a Dream<\/em>\u00a0features works by Alice Baber, Dominic Chambers, Edward Chavez, Rafael Coronel, Daniel Crews-Chubb, Marsden Hartley, Mimi Lauter, Giovanni Paolo Panini, Jorge Pardo, Patricia Peco, Lari Pitman, Odilon Redon, Max Hooper Schneider, Brenna Youngblood, and others.<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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Alice Baber,\u00a0Wheel of Day<\/em>, 1971. Oil on canvas. SBMA, Gift of the Artist to the Ala Story Collection. \u00a9 Alice Baber.<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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The artworks in this exhibition started from a kernel of reality, a glimmer of lived experience, or a sliver of memory. Like dreams, they combine real and familiar elements but in unrecognizable, illogical, or uncanny ways. They show artists giving fleeting memories a durable form, envisioning a future, and transforming the everyday into the visionary.<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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Spread across the McCormick and Davidson Galleries, the exhibition features recent acquisitions and works from the Museum\u2019s permanent collection, supplemented by loans. The presentation is divided into two sections: landscapes and bodies (mostly human).<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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The landscape section often uses the environment as a portal to the past and the artist\u2019s deep associations with places. Edward Chavez described himself as \u201can American painter with a Mexican heritage and a desire to explore that heritage.\u201d In\u00a0Elemental Landscape<\/em>\u00a0(1956), he seems to show the geological formations of New Mexico and Colorado, where he spent his childhood in a family of migrant farm workers.<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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Similarly, Alice Baber\u2019s\u00a0Wheel of Day<\/em>\u00a0(1971) epitomizes her striving to recreate on canvas what she called \u201ccolor memories.\u201d Her strongest childhood recollections were color-based, and this painting has the feel of a sunny, out-of-focus landscape made from the jumbled kaleidoscope of recollections.<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. \u2013 The Santa...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-ca-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79341"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79342,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79341\/revisions\/79342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}