Currently showing photographic work with Durden and Ray in Los Angeles.
He is the Chair of Arts, Media, and Performance and Professor of Media Arts, Cinema & Photography at Los Angeles Mission College.
in his recent series Stage is interested in how we are enticed into the picture plane – how an image can create a tension between static and dynamic, flatness and space. His current art practice is an exploration in still-life photography of sculpturally constructed abstract collage. He is creating three-dimensional objects using existing photos and textural materials which are temporarily assembled arrangements staged for the camera. The combination of visual elements is composed of the commonplace and the ordinary, but the final image in these works presents an explosive and and abstract dimension, where the traditional laws of physics and materiality have no authority.
Stage’s ongoing Urban Landscape Series is comprised of photographs and films that were shot in Los Angeles and the surrounding suburban cities of Southern California. Most of these spaces and objects are the mundane of the everyday urban environment. Seemingly around every corner, there is often a collision of aesthetic choices that were never “collaborative” in that time usually separated the development. This usually creates the very unplanned feel of the LA area where an organic dance of growth and decay are accepted. If we slow down and look deeper there is unique evidence of “the story” in each place. We have been there and left our mark.
Curtis has taught Media Arts at Claremont Graduate University, Cal State Long Beach, University of La Verne and Cerritos College.
Curtis also owned and directed a Multimedia Production company that produced broadcast commercials, documentaries, motion graphics, and websites. Currently, Curtis works in Multimedia Production on a freelance basis doing Post Production and Motion, Camera Operation, and Web App/Web Interface design. Clients have included: MGM Studios, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Touchstone Pictures/ILM, Suissa Miller, and Sierra Club. Curtis produced and co-hosted the Best Coast Show which had weekly hour-long shows focused on the Los Angeles sports world.
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 – QiPO Fair 2024, Mexico City, Mexico
2023 – Revision, Irvine Fine Arts Center, Irvine, CA
2023 – TRYST Alternative Art Fair, Torrance, CA
2023 – Disparate Alleys, Gallery 70, Tirana, Albania
2023 – QiPO Fair 2023, Mexico City, Mexico
2023 – TIEZE, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
2023 – Supermarket – Stockholm Independent Art Fair, Slaughterhouse 5, Stockholm, Sweden
2022 – Art for the Naughty & Nice 2, Modfellows Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee
2022 – Abstraction NOT Abstraction, PRJCT LA, Los Angeles, CA
2022 – B/LA Connect Exchange with Axel Obiger Gallery, Reverberations, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
2022 – Supermarket Independent Art Fair, Stockholm, Sweden
2022 – Quaranta, bG Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
2021 – Art for the Naughty & Nice, Modfellows Gallery, Nashville, Tennessee
2021 – NOMAD Art Show, Del Amo Crossing/Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA
2021 – Cautious Optimism, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
2020 – Personal Contacts 5, Durden and Ray and Virtual, Los Angeles, CA
2020 – WE ARE HERE / HERE WE ARE, Durden and Ray present We Are Here / Here We Are, a Los Angeles County-wide exhibition of nearly 100 artists that explores our innate desire for connectivity through sensation.
2020 – Spring/Break Art Show, ROW DTLA, Los Angeles, CA
2020 – QiPO Art Fair 02, Mexico City, Mexico
2020 – How Long Do You Mean to Be, Laundromat Art Space, Miami, FL
2020 – Intersections, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
2019 – Acidic Taste, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
2019 – Spinning Straw into Gold, AMP Gallery, Los Angeles Mission College, Sylmar, CA
2019 – Dreams Upon Waking: MUTO, Budapest Hungary
2018 – Los Angeles Is, Once Again: Gallery of Art at Temple University, Rome, Italy Curated by Camilla Boemio
2018 – SPECTER OF DOCUMENTATION – Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
2018 – Dragnet – Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
2018 – Odd Convergences: Steps/Missteps – Korean Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA
2018 – Supermarket – Stockholm Independent Art Fair, Slaughterhouse 5, Stockholm, Sweden
2018 – Disappear Here, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
2017 – Wasteland Dream, LVL3 Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
2017 – Entangled Loci, HilbertRaum Gallery, Berlin Germany
2017 – Southern California Teacher Exhibition, Los Angeles Center for Photography, Hollywood, CA
2017 – Round Too, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
2017 – The Collectivists, Brand Library & Art Center, Burbank CA
2017 – FreakOnNature, Durden and Ray, Los Angeles, CA
2015 – Pareidolia, Red Pipe Gallery – Chinatown, Los Angeles, CA
Earlier Exhibitions
MAS Attack 7, Santa Monica Studios, Santa Monica, CA
FF/REW, Groundspace Project, Los Angeles, CA
LA N CV, Coachella Valley Arts Center, Indio, CA
MAS Attack 2, Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA
Six Shooters, ArtMuscle Projects, Van Nuys, CA.
LACE BENEFIT ART AUCTION, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, LA, CA.
Photo Miami, International Contemporary Art Fair, Miami Fla.
Projections on Lake, Pasadena, CA. (Permanent Collection)
Chicago/LA, Deluxe Projects, Chicago, Illinois
For Roland, Bunny Gunner, Pomona, CA
The Big Picture, The Carlson Gallery, University of La Verne, La Verne, CA.
MicroClimate, The Harris Gallery, University of La Verne
Thailand New Media Art Festival, Bangkok, Thailand
Scope Los Angeles Art Fair, ScopeCircle for Emerging Art, Christie’s, Beverly Hills. Ca.
Sense and Sentiment Symposium and Exhibition: Pomona College Museum, Claremont, CA
///Video/Film Artists include:Bill Viola, Deborah Aschheim, William Virginia Basquin, Karl Erickson, Jenny Stark, Curtis Stage
YouTube/Play: Or where does the Guggenheim Get Off: Symposium – POST, Los Angeles, CA
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Harris Gallery, University of La Verne, La Verne, CA. Side Effects I Didn’t Expect
Art for Humans Gallery, Los Angeles, CA. Don’t Fall Apart, Chromajet Prints and Video
Fringe Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA Pop Bastard , interactive video installation
Kiehle Gallery, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN
University Art Gallery, California State University Stanislaus, Turlock, Ca.
Fusion Artspace, San Francisco, CA. Impossible Exchange , Video Installation
Patricia Correia Gallery, Santa Monica, Ca. Sequel, Video Installation
Deluxe Projects, Chicago, Ill., Sequel, video installation
The East Gallery, Claremont Graduate University, The Lumber Room, video installation
The Da Center for the Arts, Pomona, CA. single channel
Site, Los Angeles, CA. Over and Over, video installation