A unique dual exhibition featuring art inspired by surfing and surf culture will open in two locations in Manhattan Beach on Friday.

The Manhattan Beach Art Center and Gallery 208 have joined forces to present artwork at both locations. SWELL, at the Manhattan Beach Art Center, and Hot Batch at Gallery 208, will feature work from 18 artists who begin their creative journey at the ocean and dive deep into exploration of materials, techniques, messages, and inspiration.

The exhibition will feature the artwork of Lisa Bartleson, Susanne Melanie Berry, Casper Brindle, Dino Capaldi, Fritz Chesnut, Ned Evans, Julie Goldstein, Chip Herwegh, Dennis Jarvis, Eric Johnson, Beth Lee, David Lloyd, Shana Mabari, Zack Missioreck, Ben Soto, C.R. Stecyk III, Alex Weinstein, and Katherine Young.

An opening reception will be held at the Manhattan Beach Art Center from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., and at Gallery 208 from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m.

According to exhibit curators, while SWELL focuses on less obvious surfing inspiration, such as the materiality of resin or the dichotomy between male and female surfers, Hot Batch at Gallery 208, presents a more straightforward point of view.

In his forward to SWELL, participating artist Alex Weinstein writes: “It is hard to overstate the impact of the Pacific Ocean on the culture of California. “Surfers know the feeling best: immersion into overwhelming, tempestuous grandeur. For artists in their studios; the act is similar. Bringing an artwork to completion is no less an encounter; often its fruition is inevitably the account of a struggle between maker and medium for something greater, ineffable, sublime."

Weinstein continues: “The artists in this exhibition all share a lineage with the broader matrix of estuaries born of the Pacific. In the hands of several, fiberglass, urethane foam, and polyester resin – the very DNA of  surfing – is deconstructed and recast. Within this broader context, some are working in a renewed investigation of Light and Space – a decade’s old response to the dour austerity of New York-based Minimalism. Here and now, sleek manufacturing and sunset-tones yield a type of chemical optimism that is distinctly Californian. Others have brought the causal materiality of the sea itself: its primeval erosive/generative forces into their output. There are works here of great gestural mass owing to the heroic sweep and indomitable attitude of the ocean. For other artists in this exhibition, their narratives present more conceptually, perhaps even quietly, sharing larger interior discoveries made among the waves.”