Installation artist Judy Pfaff brings her unique art to Sacramento State during the 10th annual Festival of the Arts, with her work displayed in Kadema Hall through April 26. Pfaff will also present a slide presentation and lecture at 7 p.m. April 4.

In accordance with her art form, Pfaff always assembles her work on the spot, drawing inspiration from images and materials found in her display?s environment.

“After I have been someplace, I think, ?Oh good, now how can I do something about what I see here,?” Pfaff said.

Pfaff could be described as a counter-minimalist artist, as her creations resemble colorful explosions teaming with diverse objects and shapes.

“A finished piece always feels like evidence to me, summations of what I?ve been thinking about,” Pfaff said. “They look organic, but there is a hell of a lot of fitting going on.”

Her work incorporates many modern traditions such as cubism, realism, abstract expressionism and constructivism. Most of her large three-dimensional installation pieces, unfortunately, do not outlast the exhibition, due to their complexity and fragility.

In Japan, Pfaff constructed a three-dimensional piece called “Yoyogi,” the name of a park in Tokyo, which serves as a teenage hangout. The wood blocks made by local artists added a traditional Japanese flair to her work.

Pfaff was born in London in 1946 and later moved to Detroit at the age of thirteen. Pfaff received her undergraduate degree from Southern Illinois University and Washington University.

She was then accepted as an abstract painter, into the arts graduate program at Yale University in 1971 where she worked with installation art. In 1973, Pfaff moved to New York, where she has exhibited her work for more than 10 years.

Her work has brought her acclaim from galleries and museums throughout the United States, Europe and the Far East. Her work can be found in the Detroit Institute of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.