In this first one-person show of paintings by Ojai author-turned-artist Christopher Noxon, “Greenbelt” showcases the vibrant visions of an artist processing the interplay of wildness, development, and agriculture. Inspired by Fauvist landscapes, Huichol yarn paintings, and activists working to protect open space, Noxon creates semi-abstract pictures of familiar scenes filtered through a phantasmagorical lens, focusing on the places where mountains and orchards share space with housing and highways. The exhibit includes more than 40 works created over the last three years using oil, acrylic, collage and ink, ranging in size and scope from sketchbook doodles to large canvases described by the LA Weekly as “riotously chromatic and time-and-space bending."

Join us for the premiere party on Saturday, May 11, 2024, from 4 PM to 6 PM. Admission to the premiere is $5 for SPAM members and $10 for non-members. Beer, wine, and hors d’oeuvres will be served.

About the Artist:

Christopher Noxon paints and writes in Ojai, California. He began painting seriously in midlife, after raising kids and working as a journalist and illustrator in Los Angeles. Sullivan Goss Gallery in Santa Barbara featured his work in the 2023 exhibit “Betty Lane & Christopher Noxon: From One Generation to the Next.” His work is in the permanent collection of the Ojai Valley Museum and he’s shown at Gallery 825 in Los Angeles, the Santa Paula Art Museum, and the Beatrice Woods Center for the Arts. His writing and illustrations have appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and New York Times Magazine; books include Good Trouble: Lessons from the Civil Rights Playbook, Can We Talk About Israel?: A Guide for the Curious, Confused and Conflicted?, Plus One: A Novel and Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons Cupcakes and the Reinvention of the American Grown-Up.