The California Ag Museum welcomes California urban landscape artist and UC Davis alum , Bud Gordon, to their rotating art exhibit. Following the Friday beer and wine reception, the 12-painting series will hang on display until October 31, 2015
Woodland, Ca September 1, 2015 — The California Agriculture Museum welcomed their latest painting series this week, California Today, by Bud Gordon, as part of their rotating art exhibit. The public is invited to an installation reception on Friday, September 11, from 5:30-7pm. The event is $10 and includes a complimentary glass of beer or wine.
The 12 painting series, ranging from 14 inches by 18 inches to 36 inches by 48 inches, takes visitors on a tour through California’s urban landscapes, merging with agriculture fields. Museum goers can enjoy the series through the end of October 2015, and a portion of the art sale proceeds will benefit the non-profit.
“Imagine touring some of California’s richest agricultural land by way of the Sacramento Corridor to San Jose by train,” explained Gordon, “The paintings are labeled so you understand your physical progression along the exhibit route.
As a Sacramento resident for decades, and University of Davis graduate, Gordon says the work documents his visual experience as a painter in California today. As a self-proclaimed “Urban Realist,” Gordon is interested in an attempt to reveal that which, in the middle of banal every day, remains extraordinary, rare, unique, and personal. 
“When visiting the Bay Area, I will usually take the train, it is such a pleasant way to travel because I am able to draw and photograph the urban landscape along the way,” he continued, “This current work, created in 2014, are the views I’ve seen between Sacramento and San Jose on the Capitol Corridor train.”
Gordon studied with renowned artists Wayne Thiebaud and Manuel Neri at the University of California Davis, and he refers to himself as an urban artist whose paintings explore how art can engage the viewer by documenting the environment, people, places and things.
When describing his art, Gordon says at distance his work looks realistic while close up it dissolves into abstraction. He explained that his love of the medium inspires him to work the surface and build in textures, and that by using sketching and photography to capture the essence of the terrain, he can return to in the studio to transform those glimpses into complex landscapes brimming with surface tension.
“Bud’s art has been hung at the Shimo Center for the Arts in Sacramento, as well as, The Gold Leaf Gallery in Monterey; it is a pleasure to welcome his collection into the museum,” says Executive Director Lorili Ostman, “this rotating art exhibit continues to support our museum mission to educate and preserve the culture of agriculture in our community.”
For more information about the event, or to pre-purchase tickets, visit http://www.CaliforniaAgMuseum.org or call 530-666-9700. The California Agriculture Museum, formerly the Heidrick Ag History Center, is located at 1962 Hays Lane, Woodland, CA.
Although tractors may not traditionally bring artistic visions to mind, the Heidrick Ag History Center appreciates art as much as the next collector. In the coming year the museum will add several art additions, including the installation of a captivating metal tractor sculpture outside, as well as, a proposed rotating art gallery exhibit inspired by agriculture called “Art Alley”.
California Ag Museum 