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South Coast Art Exhibit Features New Take On Celtic & Medieval Traditions

Michael Pearce
"The Clouty Tree, The Devil, and Me" art exhibit at the Kwan Fong Gallery at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks runs through April 7th.

A new take on Celtic and Medieval traditions is the focus of an art exhibit on the South Coast.

Michael Pearce uses oil paint on canvas to create works of art in his studio at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

“I think images can really help to tell us what the human the condition is,” he says.

That condition is what Pearce’s exhibit called “The Clouty Tree, the Devil and Me” is all about.  It features modern paintings with medieval themes.

One depicts a woman in space reaching out to hold planet earth.

Some of his other works are held on 20-foot-high wooden structures.

Pearce built the structures to symbolize the Celtic tradition of clouty trees, which is "a tree that grows beside a sacred spring or well, where people tie rags to the tree like prayers or invocations,” he says.

Pearce’s exhibit at the Kwan Fong Gallery on CLU’s campus runs through April 7th.

CLU is the parent of KCLU Radio.