Exploring Spiritual Creativity with Serena Brinderson

Inspired by Spiritual Geographies: Religion and Landscape Art in California, 1890 – 1930, teaching artist Serena Brinderson leads a guided meditation, breathwork, and sound bath followed by an art making workshop in the Education Studio. The workshop begins with quiet, contemplative experiences in the gallery followed by a brief introduction to the exhibition by Assistant Curator Michaëla Mohrmann, PhD. Mohrmann’s introduction focuses on the works of artist Agnes Pelton and offers insights into the exhibition’s key themes of religion and mysticism. In the studio, participants use a variety of organic materials to make an abstract artwork exploring related ideas about intuition and spirituality.

About the Artist
Serena Brinderson is an artist based in Southern California who employs natural elements and rhythms to create, connect, and explore her own spirituality through art making. Her artistic process begins with meditation and a mantra, which intuitively guide her choice of materials—such as flowers, herbs, teas, and beeswax—in the creation of assemblage works that evolve over time. Brinderson received a BFA in sculpture and photography from California State University, Fullerton and is certified in both Hatha and Kundalini Yoga. She also earned a Masters in the Art of Teaching at University of Southern California. Her practice has continually strengthened her intuition and other modalities of healing. She has taught yoga and meditation for 20 years, and is also trained as a Reiki Master, Oracle, and Sister of Avalon.

About the Exhibition Curator
Michaëla Mohrmann is assistant curator at UCI Langson Institute and Museum of California Art. She holds a BA in art history from Harvard University and a PhD in art history from Columbia University, where she studied modern and contemporary art with an emphasis on Latin American and Latinx art. Her writings have been featured in ArtMargins, Artforum, MoMA Post: Notes on Art in a Global Context, ArtAsiaPacific, and ICAA Documents of Latin American and Latino Art as well as several exhibition catalogues, including most recently New York: 1962- 64, Wifredo Lam: The Imagination at Work and Prabhavathi Meppayil.

About Langson IMCA
Langson IMCA explores and celebrates artists and their capacity to develop new forms and ideas in response to the California experience. It collects, conserves, and generates scholarship for modern and contemporary art inspired by the State’s diverse societal, cultural, and natural environments. As an institution dedicated to becoming the epicenter of California Art, Langson IMCA presents programming that strives to provoke questions around an expansive understanding of art making inspired by the Golden State.

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