The career of Professor Babette Mayor, a longtime fixture in Cal Poly Pomona’s art department, will be celebrated with an on-campus exhibition beginning this month.
The Cal Poly Pomona Art Galleries will present the exhibit “Who Looks Inside: The Art of Babette Mayor,” Nov. 14 through Jan. 7. The opening reception will be held on Saturday, Nov. 14, 4-7 p.m., at the Donald B. Huntley Gallery.
The iconic graphics found in religion, culture, lifestyle, politics, and consumerism have enticed Mayor’s imagination and have directed her conceptual development. A large portion of her work consists of mixed media prints inspired by this fascination. Photographs of store windows, signs, interiors and exteriors are manipulated and reconstructed through layering, painting and altering colors.
Mayor’s mixed media photography combined with graphic arts, with both digital and hand-made manipulation, produce surreal, whimsical and poignant kaleidoscopic images. Her recent work has been described as reminiscent of the prints of 1960s America — but with a more multi-cultural reality. Her current work focuses on some of the more serious environmental dangers inherent in city growth and expansion.
Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and is in many private collections as well as in the Arkansas State University Collections, in the American Council on Education Collection and The Security Pacific Collections.
Mayor joined the CPP faculty in 1990 and has taught classes in graphic design, illustration, package design, typography, computer graphics, 2D design, professional practices in graphic design, and Introduction to Design and Drawing.
The Don B. Huntley Gallery, located on the 4th floor of the University Library in Room 4435, is open Monday, Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m., and Wednesday – Thursday, 4-8 p.m. For more information, email artgalleries@cpp.edu or call (909) 869-4302.