Mutual Drift is an anchor back to physical space for those drifting in the virtual. It comprises two solo exhibitions installed in several sites across the usually lively Fresno City College campus, which since March of last year has been quiet and still. Separate in concept, the works are linked by material (clay) and proximity; artists Marla Sweitzer and Christian Vargas share a home and studio, providing mutual, critical support to one another during the pandemic.

The Fresno City College campus is a beautiful and atmospheric place — an open, urban setting with a generous tree canopy, many semi-private courtyards with places for sitting, peach-colored stairwells, and lush greenhouses usually tended by horticulture students. Mutual Drift engages some of these spaces, offering glimpses of artworks to those who find themselves on campus these days — essential staff; faculty who drop in to visit their offices during breaks between online classes; local residents walking their dogs.

Marla Sweitzer’s hand built, oil painted, clay sculptures are deceptively simple. She asks questions with the material that consider engineering problems and the most ephemeral, temporal concerns. What is the slightest curve that a wall can have before it falls over? How does changing light interact with a specific color as it falls across a hand-marked surface? By contrast, Christian Vargas ’vessels, scepters, and busts are embedded with stories, symbols, and biography, deeply influenced by growing up in the Sunnyside area of Fresno and his mothers ’non-hierarchical swap-meet aesthetic. He builds a cosmology in which religious icons, pop culture knick-knacks, and childhood superhero figures are all given equal consideration as objects of value.

Listen to Marla Sweitzer and Christian Vargas discuss their work in this interview from October 2020: