Cypress College
Art Gallery
About CCAG
Cypress College Art Gallery (CCAG) presents professional and student exhibitions, performances, workshops, lectures, and visiting artists’ projects to enhance Fine Arts coursework, further support student success, and enrich the broader Cypress community.
Located on Kizh and Tongva land, CCAG is in the gateway area of the Cypress College campus near the campus theater. CCAG is closest to Valley View Street, which is accessible from the 405, 91, and 5 Freeways. Park in Lot 1 in the designated visitor’s area, and remember to purchase a parking pass via the QR codes posted in the lot and on campus.
ADDRESS
9200 Valley View Street
Cypress, CA 90630
Gallery Hours
Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. and by appointment.
Contact
jdriggs@cypresscollege.edu
213 864 1242
Parking
Park in Lot 1. Parking permits can be purchased via the QR codes posted in the lot and on campus.
Staff
Janet Owen Driggs, Director
Nadia Wallace, Administrative Assistant
Gallery FLOOR PLAN and Photos
Current Exhibitions | Past Exhibitions
Presented simultaneously, CCAG’s spring exhibitions Blue Vibrations and Resilience explore the human capacity to transform adversity into creativity, connection, and meaning.
BLUE VIBRATIONS showcases the work of artist and maker Mila Gokham. Born in 1934 in Kiev, Ukraine, Gokham, a Jewish woman, survived some of the major traumas of the twentieth century. With a brilliant eye for color and texture, her meticulously crafted leather works and abstract collages of cut and pasted papers pulse with life, joy, and movement.
After a long career as an accomplished artist and designer in Ukraine, Gokham moved to Southern California in 2000. For the past twenty-five years she has continued to create art daily, though largely outside the public eye. In her small apartment, leather reliefs and collages, intricate leather and beaded jewelry, belts, and other handcrafted objects dating back nearly half a century are stacked against walls, packed into boxes, and tucked into closets. Now in her ninth decade, they are an ever-expanding archive of the artist’s vivid curiosity, elegant invention, and sinewy persistence.
The images of Gokham’s work in the carousel below represent a fraction of her output. See and read more at Ms. Gokham’s website HERE.
Addressing themes of belonging, identity, and self-worth, RESILIENCE highlights the work of five professional artists who are also highly trained art therapists: Sara DeSmet, MA, MFA, LMFT, ATR; Alexia Kutzner, DAT, MA, MFA, LMFT, ATR-BC; Maria Elena Fuster, PhD, LMFT, ATR-BC; Eliza Ann Mitchell, MA, LMFT, ATR-BC; and Licia Wise, MA, LMFT.
As the group has stated, “Making meaning and finding value in the human experience is inherent in our work and livelihoods…As art therapists who continually aid clients in making meaning, we believe in the human spirit and in its resilience. During these times of continued political and environmental turmoil, pressing on to find meaning and overcoming challenge is as important as ever. We are interested in connecting to the communities around us to encourage resilience. We hope our work brings together the community to dialogue around such important issues. We propose that art-making can be a pathway in finding personal and collective strength, endurance and overcoming challenges.”
In addition to their individual foci, the artists have included two bodies of work in Resilience that were created around a group-initiated prompt. With each group member developing a uniquely personal response, the catalyst for project one was a repurposed book –a common art therapy tool to aid expression; and the second prompt of an “award” honor efforts that are not generally acknowledged or noticed.
The exhibition offers visitors the opportunity to intervene in repurposed books that have been initiated by the Resilence artists. All materials will be provided.
Together, RESILIENCE and BLUE VIBRATIONS affirm art not as escape or distraction in uncertain times, but as a sustaining force: a way of holding ground, asserting individual and community presence, shaping experience, and turning survival into something that shimmers.