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< Back to ACTIVATION 1/4 Sergio Hernandez Chicano Time Capsule, Nelli Quitoani January 22 - April 17, 2022 For forty years, the late Chicano artist and cartoonist Sergio Hernandez has echoed important cultural topics and socio-political issues of the Chicano community. Early on, Hernandez began working for “Con Safos Magazine”, the first Chicano literary magazine. Upon being recruited by “Con Safos” member and artist Tony Gomez, Hernandez began to align his practice with themes related to the emerging Chicano Movement or “El Movimiento”. The Chicano Movement was and still is geared toward advocating for “social and political empowerment through “chicanismo”, the idea of taking pride in one’s Mexican-American heritage, or cultural nationalism.” Across painting, cartoons, and murals, Hernandez satires socio-political happenings and provides an intimate perspective of the Chicano community. Influenced by Chicano culture, iconography, and artists alike, Hernandez’s work became a beacon calling for action and attention to the harsh realities faced by the Chicano community. The artworks in this exhibition are a small yet compelling collection of Hernandez’s contribution to the Chicano art and power movements. The panel of comic strips on display belong to the “Arnie and Porfi” comic series. Struggling with the duality of his identity as a Mexican- American, Hernandez often battled with his internal desire to adhere to conservative family-views and his newly found chicanismo. Hernandez expressed this conflict through satire and comedic relief through the Arnie and Porfi comics, visualizing the dystopian world. In other words, through art and humor Hernandez exposes the political oddities and disproportionate disparity experienced by Mexican- Americans. Sergio Hernandez (1948-2021) was born and raised in Los Angeles, California in the South Central area known as the Florence/Firestone District. He received his Bachelor Degree in Chicano Studies from San Fernando Valley State College, which is now known as the California State University, Northridge. Previous Next

back to list Super A Stefan Thelen’s anti-superhero identity Super A is a Dutch artist who uses traditional painting technique and a knack for design to create compositions that manipulate familiar iconography into mind-bending and inquisitive pieces. His alter-ego, Super A is the filter with which the life and observations of Stefan Thelen are distilled down and turn into inspiration. All of his work evolves out of personal experiences or thoughts that grow into concepts which tightrope between fiction and nonfiction. Super A is a mystery that leans on the art doing most of the talking for Stefan Thelen, taking the viewer into a wonderland walking down a yellow brick road in which Thelen’s figurative and modern surrealist compositions are providing playful puzzles to decipher.

back to list Tran Nguyen TRAN NGUYEN is an award-winning illustrator & gallery artist. Born in Can Tho, Vietnam, she currently resides in the peachy state of Georgia. Tran's paintings are created with a soft, delicate quality using colored pencil and acrylic on paper.

< Back Mother Comes to Venus North Gallery Zackary Drucker Zackary Drucker is a Los Angeles-based independent artist, cultural producer, activist, and filmmaker. Drucker utilizes photography, performance, and video to break downs pre-conceived notions of gender, sexuality, and identity. Drucker’s work explores potentialities for queer and trans futures, utilizing both narrative and non-linear storytelling to imagine new modalities of queer and trans representation. Drucker uses her experiences as a trans woman and those of her collaborators to showcase nuanced and varied accounts of trans existence. Drucker’s photography often accompanies her film practice, functioning as a figurative nexus of her performance and video work. Her photographic practice includes highly personal portraits that explore themes of voyeurism, intimacy, and personal history. Drucker often collaborates with trans matriarchs to explore models of queer motherhood. Her film Mother Comes to Venus, 2018, portrays a fictionalized post-gender Hollywood, envisioning a world where queer and trans people control their own narratives. Powerhouse agent, Venus Allen, grapples with her newfound power and responsibility towards representation and is visited by her spiritual “mother” for guidance. Drucker’s film Unison, 2013-2017, explores multi-generational queer identity. The film’s cast includes the late Mother Flawless Sabrina, a drag queen and queer activist, as well as Drucker’s real-life mother, and Van Barnes, a trans woman and frequent collaborator with Drucker. Dreamlike non-linear sequences of these figures evoke a visual depiction of trans and queer identity over the course of a lifetime. Previous Next

Up It Takes a Village Various Artists Artists: Betye Saar Lezley Saar Alison Saar Wyatt Kenneth Coleman Richard S. Chow Lisa Bartleson Scott Yoell Jane Szabo Rebecca Campbell It Takes a Village is comprised of six exhibitions addressing the dynamic of working as a community through the subjects of family, race, gender, and age. Featured in the Main Gallery at MOAH are the works of celebrated assemblage artist Betye Saar and her daughters, artists Alison Saar and Lezley Saar. It Takes a Village will also showcase solo exhibitions of Wyatt Kenneth Coleman, Jane Szabo, and Richard S. Chow, with site specific installations by artists Lisa Bartleson and Scott Yoell. Each of the artists featured in this exhibition explores the relationships and responsibilities of community. Betye, Alison, and Lezley Saar’s work consists of two and three-dimensional assemblages that examine history and identity through the juxtaposition of objects, photographs, mixed media, and fabric. The documentary photography of Lancaster resident Wyatt Kenneth Coleman chronicles the importance of engagement and oral history and the role it plays emphasizing the value of serving one’s community and family. Jane Szabo and Richard S. Chow present different work stylistically, but address similar themes of home, displacement, and sentimentality through conceptual photographs. Szabo records family history through objects while Chow’s images fabricate an imaginary history of what might have been if he had not been an immigrant. Lisa Bartleson’s large scale installation of hundreds of small hand-made houses explores the act of healing through community and engagement. The site specific work of Scott Yoell’s “Tsunami,” consisting of three thousand four-inch tall businessmen figures installed in a giant wave, represents the artist’s thoughts on the global economy and automation. Memory & Identity: The Marvelous Art of Betye, Lezley & Alison Saar Betye, Lezley and Alison Saar have created some of the most powerful, important and deeply moving art in our contemporary world. Their compelling works forge idiosyncratic constructions of social memory and personal identity, as well as the cultural histories underlying them. All three Saars assemble two- and three-dimensional works based on unexpected juxtapositions of form and content. They deploy the flotsam of material culture, from discarded architectural components (old windows, ceiling tiles, wall paper) to domestic detritus (washboards, buckets, shelves) to historic photographs and printed fabrics. “I like things,” Betye asserted in a recent interview. “Every object tells a story. If I recombine them, they tell another story.” In their aesthetic practice of collecting and recombining objects, the Saars become what French philosopher Claude Levi-Strauss called bricoleurs: creators who arrange preexisting articles and images to produce dramatic visual compositions. Levi-Strauss expanded the French term bricoleur (a “Do-It-Yourself” handyman) to include anyone who works with the materials at hand, cobbling together disparate parts to create novel solutions. All of the Saars use recycled materials not generally considered “appropriate” art media. Modern art academies, founded in Europe in the seventeenth century, had privileged oil paint on canvas and cast bronze as elite, “high art” media. In contrast, creations in jewelry, textiles and ceramics were considered “low art” or crafts. When the Saars employ objects like handkerchiefs and old books as painting surfaces, or tin ceiling tiles and buckets as sculpture, they violate long-held boundaries between high and low arts. Their material contraventions parallel the artists’ transgressions of identity-based binaries such as male/female, culture/nature and master/slave. Wyatt Kenneth Coleman: Beyond the Village Wyatt Kenneth Coleman is a freelance photojournalist whose career spans more than fifty years. While serving in the military during the Vietnam War, he studied at the U.S. Air Force Photography School, gaining skills that would benefit him in both his military and artistic careers. Coleman has dedicated his life to documenting social justice movements and people who strive to make a difference in the world around them. Coleman’s dedication to helping others is evident in both his artistic practice and humanitarian contributions. In addition to documenting the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Coleman established a collaboration with Coretta Scott King in 1979, which remained active until her death. Coleman was interested in the effect that the Civil Rights Movement had on the lives of ordinary people, stating, “When a person is committed and makes a contribution to their community, lives are changed and doing the right thing is really key.” His work documents every-day people participating in non-violent activism by committing acts of kindness and working towards social justice. Coleman seeks to emphasize the importance that engagement and oral history play in passing down the value of serving one’s community and family. Wyatt Kenneth Coleman has certifications from the Winona School of Professional Photography, the University of Minnesota and Santa Fe Photographic workshops. Coleman’s work has been shown in publications including 3M , Ebony and Jet Magazines and The Daily Word . Coleman has also been awarded for his selfless volunteer service in the communities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and was recognized for his volunteer work at the Elm Avenue Community Garden by Assemblyman Tom Lackey, in addition to receiving an award from Lancaster City Council for his contributions to the community. Richard S. Chow: Distant Memories Richard S. Chow’s photography focuses on aesthetic, documentary and conceptual images. Technical precision and composition remain the hallmarks of his work, but Chow continues to examine all aspects of the artistic medium including homemade shooting devices, film, phone and high tech digital cameras. Chow’s interest in photography began during his formative years in Hong Kong. His family moved from Hong Kong to Los Angeles when he was sixteen. Those first years were difficult for an immigrant teenager due to language and culture shifts, and at times were overwhelming as he tried to find his place in this new world. As the American culture was slowly absorbed, southern California was a place that eventually provided him with comfort and inspiration as a young man. Chow now frequents the beach regularly as a place for relaxation and observation. With this series, Distant Memories, he captures the childhood that he could have experienced. Like finding shells on the shore, Chow collects visual memories and while they might not be his own memories, they allow him to imagine a childhood in a place he now calls home. Chow has widely exhibited in solo and juried exhibits across the United States and his work has been internationally published and is featured in several private and public collections. He is a producer/curator for global OPEN SHOW (Los Angeles Chapter), a non-profit that provides a forum for dialog between the public, artists, galleries and collectors. Chow earned awards in Lucie Foundation’s IPA International Photography Awards four years in a row (2013-2016) and he was honored with gold, silver and bronze awards from Tokyo International Foto Awards. Chow lives and works in Los Angeles. Lisa Bartleson: Kindred Lisa Bartleson, known primarily as a sculptor, is an artist who uses resin and ceramic material in both two and three dimensional work. She is known for using natural pigments, inviting a calm, constant and enduring contemplation from the viewer. Lisa Bartleson’s Kindred is a large-scale installation composed of over 200 slip casted porcelain houses that have been manipulated and traumatized, displaying various stages of physical and emotional restoration that explores healing in and by the community. In this work, Bartleson references the Japanese tradition of kintsugi as an exercise of restoration. Kintsugi is the art of repairing broken pottery with gold lacquer as a way to emphasize and celebrate the history of a piece rather than disguise its past. The multitude of houses are bound together by their shared experience and placement. From a standing position one views the entire installation from a bird’s-eye view, similarly to how people perceive and rearticulate memory. The object as body, scarred but beautiful, strong and elastic, becomes central to the experience. The onlooker is asked to examine their cracks caused by physical and/or emotional suffering and the communal foundations of memory and recovery that filter, shift and support identity. Bartleson layers the experience with her own heartbeat and the sound of a baby’s heartbeat in the womb, reminding us that we are all built from material, memory and a universal cycle of life. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Northern Colorado. Her work is in many prominent public and private collections including the Lancaster Museum of Art and History. Bartleson has been featured in many publications such as White Hot Magazine , Fabrik Magazine , Huffington Post , LA Art Diary , Architectural Digest and Sunset Magazine . Lisa Bartleson was born in Seattle, Washington and currently resides in northern California. Scott Yoell: Tsunami Scott Yoell has delved into traditional and electronic media with his most recent works being drawing, sculpture and video/sound installation. Yoell’s fascination with trinkets and the nostalgia they provoke inspired the Tsunami installation. Yoell first conceived the idea of Tsunami many years ago when visiting a shop in Omaha, Nebraska. He found “a trinket figure, a little metal business man.” The tiny trinket reminded Yoell of the figures atop of trophies, but wondered what a suited man could represent. Intrigued by the unknown, he bought the figure and from it stemmed the idea of Tsunami. This installation consists of three thousand figures, all standing approximately four inches tall. Each figure is of a man in a business suit and hat holding a briefcase. The figures are cast in a “flesh-toned” plastic and are formed from the same mold. The mold deteriorates over time, causing each figure to have minor differences, making each one unique. These individual, tiny men come together to form a tsunami, an unusually large waved caused by a shift in the earth’s foundation. Yoell has a Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of Windsor, Canada and a Master of Fine Art in Imaging and Digital Arts from the University of Maryland. His work has been featured in The Contemporary Museum’s Biennial of Hawaii Artist Exhibition , Honolulu, Hawaii, the Galleria Art Mûr, Montreal, Quebec and Artcite, Windsor, Ontario. Yoell has been featured at the Videoholica 2010 International Video Art Festival , Varna, Bulgaria. Scott Yoell, originally from Windsor, Ontario now lives in Waimea, Hawaii. Jane Szabo: Family Matters Merging her love for fabrication and materials with conceptual photography, Jane Szabo investigates issues of self and identity in her latest body of work, Family Matters. Szabo uses still life as a vehicle to share stories from her life. The objects photographed, isolated on a black field, provoke thoughts about home, displacement and sentimentality. Family Matters incorporates memory, metaphor and allegory to express the challenges, anxieties and joys as Szabo’s role as a daughter and her parents’ caretaker. This series uses objects from their family home, mementos from her childhood, to illustrate the story of their relationship. Using these childhood possessions and simple items that have been in their family for years, she creates tableaus that hint at complicated family dynamics. The presentation of these objects is not merely a catalog of possessions, but a catalog of feelings; of pain and disappointment, loss, burden and hope. Jane Szabo is a multi-disciplinary visual artist who earned an MFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Her background in the film industry, creating prop and miniatures for theme parks, and overseeing set construction for film and television undoubtedly informs her creative process. Szabo’s photographs have been featured in many publications including Huffington Post , Lenscratch , Bokeh Bokeh , L’Oeil de la Photographie , F-Stop Magazine , Diversions LA and ArtsMeme among others. Her work has been included in exhibitions at Oceanside Museum of Art, the Griffin Museum of Photography, The Colorado Center for Photographic Arts, San Diego Art Institute, Los Angeles Center for Photography, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Gallery 825 in Los Angeles, and the 2015 Kaohsiung International Photographer Exhibition in Taiwan. February 10 - April 22, 2018 Back to list

4th Floor Mural Custom Aerospace Mural Curated by the Lancaster Museum of Art & History 1/1 1 - McDonnell F-21 Voodoo, a USAF supersonic jet fighter Photographic Print 2012.999.70 MOAH Permanent Collection Gift of Edwards Air Force Base (AFFTC-HO) 2 - SpaceShipOne Photographic Print 2020.FIC.05.02 MOAH Digital Collection Gift of Edwards Air Force Base (AFFTC-HO) SpaceShipOne is an experimental air-launched, rocket-powered aircraft manufactured by Scaled Composites that has a hybrid rocket motor allowing it to be capable of sub-orbital spaceflight. 3 - USAF test pilot Robert A. (“Bob”) Hoover with XFJ-2, 1951 Photographic Print 2012.999.71 MOAH Permanent Collection Gift of Edwards Air Force Base (AFFTC-HO) 4 - Corwin "Corky" Meyer, a Grumman Test Pilot Photographic Print 2012.999.72 MOAH Permanent Collection Gift of Edwards Air Force Base (AFFTC-HO) 5 - Research pilot John Manke with an X-24B Lifting Body, 1975. Photographic Print 2012.999.73 MOAH Permanent Collection Gift of Edwards Air Force Base (AFFTC-HO) John served as Chief of Flight Operations, and as site manager NASA's Flight Research Center, later the Dryden Flight Research Center, at Edwards, CA. 6 - William J. "Pete" Knight sitting in an X-15 Photographic Print 2012.999.55.03 MOAH Permanent Collection Gift of Edwards Air Force Base (AFFTC-HO) 7 - B-52 Stratofortress, c. 1960 Photographic Print 2012.999.56.01 MOAH Permanent Collection Gift of Edwards Air Force Base (AFFTC-HO) The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is an American long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, which has continued to provide support and upgrades. It has been operated by the United States Air Force since the 1950s. 8 - McDonnell F-21 Voodoo, a USAF supersonic jet fighter Photographic Print 2012.999.70 MOAH Permanent Collection Gift of Edwards Air Force Base (AFFTC-HO) 9 - Anthony "Tony" LeVier posing on a Lockheed Starfighter, c. 1960s Photographic Print 2012.999.66.02 MOAH Permanent Collection Gift of Edwards Air Force Base (AFFTC-HO) Tony LeVier's test flying was instrumental in proving the Lockheed P-38 Lightning design. He and chief engineering test pilot Milo Burcham alternated flying dive tests to observe the design's performance at transonic speeds. To demonstrate the reliability of the design in the hands of a skilled pilot, he performed aerobatic shows for students at the Polaris Flight school at War Eagle Field in nearby Lancaster. 10 - Space Shuttle Columbia Photographic Print 2012.999.37.03 MOAH Permanent Collection Gift of Edwards Air Force Base (AFFTC-HO)

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Up Estate Italiana Various Artists Curated by: Cynthia Penna & Art 1307 Alex Pinna Antonella Masetti Carlo Marcucci Marco Casentini Carla Viparelli Marco Casentini Max Coppeta Nicola Evangelisti https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc0sN0NUw8Q Italian Summer by Cynthia Penna The Lancaster Museum of Art and History (MOAH) celebrates the rich and vibrant history of Italian artistic tradition by showcasing seven contemporary Italian artists in its newest exhibition, Estate Italiana. MOAH will be kicking off this exhibition with a free opening reception on Saturday, August 26, from 4 – 6 p.m., where the public may view the exhibition and meet each artist. Estate Italiana (Italian Summer) will be on view from Saturday, August 26 through Sunday, October 22. The exhibition is part of a cultural exchange program between the Lancaster Museum and ART1307, an arts institution headquartered in Naples, Italy. The exchange began in 2015 when ART1307 hosted an exhibition originating at MOAH. This summer’s exhibition features a breadth of work including paintings, sculptures, video installations, and murals. Guest curator Cynthia Penna writes, “There is no doubt that the great and immense history of Italian art hovers like a heavy and complex cloud over artists today.” Like the sons or daughters who live in the shadow of a famous parent, many contemporary Italian artists are crushed under the weight of the legacy of such masters as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, or Raphael just to name a few. The artists taking on this challenge in Estate Italiana are Alex Pinna, Antonella Masetti, Carla Viparelli, Carlo Marcucci, Max Coppeta, and Nicola Evangelisti. Marco Casentini, originally from La Spezia, Italy, will be joining the artists of Estate Italiana with the launch of his own traveling exhibition, Drive In, which will transform MOAH’s main gallery and showcase his vibrant collection of abstract paintings inspired by metropolitan architectural structures. With Drive In, the gallery becomes an immersive installation that envelops the spectator in geometric shapes and colors, created specifically in relation to the gallery itself. In doing so, Casentini aims to develop a complex relationship with the larger space and modify the perception of the viewer. This exhibit will also celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Fiat 500 by wrapping the vehicle in a complementary design, which audiences will be able to visit at the Hunter Alfa Romeo/Fiat showroom at the Lancaster Auto Mall. Drive In will travel to Milan, Italy at the Bocconi Art Gallery of the University Bocconi and finish at the Reggia Reale di Caserta in Caserta, Italy after its launch here in Lancaster. On Sunday, September 3, at 2 p.m. visiting Italian artists will host a gallery walk-through, where they will speak about their work and artistic processes. Carla Viparelli will host a free artist talk to engage the community in conjunction with Estate Italiana on Sunday, October 8, from 2p.m. in the Museum’s South Gallery. The presentation will include an overview of her experience as a contemporary Italian artist and her current work on display. Estate Italiana is generously supported by the Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation, ART 1307, Best Western – Desert Poppy Inn, Hunter Alfa Romeo/Fiat, Fregoso Outdoor Foundation, Visco Financial Insurance Services, LookUp, and the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles. Alex Pinna Alex Pinna began his artistic practice with a focus on the world of childhood culture, comics and fairy tales. Since those early days, he has created many divergent works, breathing life into a world of essential figures constructed from a variety of materials, including bronze, rope, wood and glass, whose main features are elegance, balance and irony. In a series of site-specific sculptures created specifically for Estate Italiana, Pinna tackles the theme humanity in moments of action, reflection, meditation and solitude; his aim is not the physical body but the existential condition of man. These genderless bodies, with gigantic limbs attached to slender trunks and shaved heads that give no indication of sex, symbolize the condition of being human, rather than that of having a personality. Slender figures that seem to face efforts that go beyond what a human being can manage, who support enormous walls with their bodies to prevent them from collapsing, who lift the globe or rest on it, sitting in precarious equilibrium—we seem to be dealing with a hero from Greek mythology, a Hercules tackling challenge after challenge. Pinna has recreated a mythological metaphor within a contemporary world. His personalities are merely the heroes of the past. These themes have also inspired the artist’s “puppet theatres,” made from Moleskine® notebooks turned into pop-outs that reveal different characters and personalities. In these works, Pinna uses an object that travellers have utilized for decades to jot down their experiences, a journal that is personal yet universal, a diary we may all identify with, which tells stories once opened. It is the quintessential theatre. Indeed, what is theatre, from Greek tragedy to comedy, but an uninterrupted telling of a story, of lives and explorations? The Moleskine® becomes at the same time theatre and book, opening to reveal a pop-out scene, a fragment of life, an instant or an eternity, a kind of theatre “set,” of collective and individual life. Alex Pinna was born in Imperia and attended Brera Fine Arts Academy in Milan, earning a Master of Fine Arts in painting. In 1991, he collaborated with Allan Kaprow, creating the 7 Environments exhibition, which showed at the Mudima gallery in Milan and Naples. He began teaching in 1996 has continuously exhibited in museums and galleries since 1997. Pinna is currently a professof of sculpture at the Cantanzaro Academy of Fine Arts. Antonella Masetti In the artists’ universe the viewer may recognize a thread within the Italian tradition that has progressed from the landscapes just visible in the background of de Vinci’s paintings, to the more massive and powerful bodies of Michelangelo, to the intellectual sophistication of the works of Piero della Francesca or Bronzino. Antonella Masetti Lucarella has made the Italian tradition of painting from Humanism to Mannerism her own, rendering it on her canvases. Her color choices further confirm the fact that her works are part of the Italian traditional heritage. Masetti’s women are immersed in their everyday life, there is no banal or empty sentimentalism in them, but pulsating sentiments: they suffer, laugh, participate and fight. These women, to whom a considerable body of the artist’s work is dedicated, are gentle warriors; they sometimes show complicity, but are also self-aware and conscious of their power. The female universe is finally seen and described from within. Masetti’s women have no need to show off, assume attitudes, or play a role. Her women are, and they know; in other words, they are conscious of their existence and interiority. Antonella Masetti Lucarella is an internationally known painter who has worked in Milan for over 25 years. She has shown her work in solo and group exhibitions in art galleries, museums, cultural centers and art fairs throughout Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Hungary, Peru and Japan. In 1991, she received D&D Art Magazine’s III International Prize and in 2000 her sketch, commemorating Rome’s International Symposium on Breast Cancer, was printed and issued as a stamp by Poste Italiane (the Italian General Post Office). Carla Viparelli Carla Viparelli is a self-taught figurative artist who graduated in philosophy from the University of Naples. Her paintings have evolved over about 30 years, in the course of which she has experienced with different kinds of figurative art. Viparelli’s artistic research centers principally on nature, its different aspects and its countless transformations, but she also explores social happenings and the contemporary common sentiment. A consistent part of her work has been dedicated to language and its different means of expression: mainly through images but also sometimes through writing. In many of her works the artist has connected the two modes of expression, creating a kind of vocabulary by images and writings that dialogue among them, with mood that vacillates between serious and facetious. Carla Viparelli was born in Naples and received both a Bachelor and Master cum laude in Philosophy at the University of Naples, where she completed a thesis in Contemporary Art. Throughout her career, she has received many awards, including: first prize at the International Painting Contest, Borgo San Severino, in 2009, first prize in the Postcards Assissi contest in 2014 and first prize in 100 Cubed—100 Rooms for 100 Artists, at Art Hotel Grand Paradiso in Sorrento. In 2012, she founded and directed Chi cerca, Crea, a workshop in the Municipality of Maratea. She currently lives and works in Naples and Maratea. Carlo Marcucci Italian born but Californian by choice, Carlo Marcucci embodies the benefits of embracing two cultures which are quite different in many aspects. The fusion of two traditions takes place at the moment when acceptance of what is new and different is assimilated and included among the treasures of a more remote past, without sacrificing either the old nor the new heritage. What makes Marcucci unique is that he succeeds in merging morals, usages and traditions without any reverential fear of altering a particular reality or tradition. The equilibrium necessary to achieve this takes the form of an innovative and unusual use of materials, in this case from the culinary heritage of the artist’s native country. Spaghetti, which plays an important role in the collective imagination of Italian culture, both in Italy and abroad, is deprived of its original function and used to create works of art. Wheatfields was made primarily from spaghetti, as if to confirm that the blending of customs and traditions is an appanage of the arts. Marcucci succeeds in decontextualizing pasta from its basic, traditional function as food, making it serve as nutrition for the mind and spirit, in an arrangement that is both constructivist and geometric, its elements combining to create a mural of sculpture. The goal is to of alter the intrinsic nature of the object, effecting a transformation meant to instate another function. The works featuring binders utilize a similar process: these stationery items are selected and catalogued by colour and dimension, then reassembled as geometric structures. When hung on the wall, the metal of the binders reflects light, transforming the original material into a work of art. Carlo Marcucci was born in Florence, Italy to American artist Sallie Whistler Marcucci and Italian journalist Moreno Marcucci. He grew up in downtown Rome, where he attended St. Stephen's International School, located next to the Circus Maximus, before moving to Atlanta, Georgia, to study design at the Atlanta College of Art (now SCAD Atlanta). He worked as a graphic designer and signage expert at Jan Lorenc Design and Wagner/Bruker Design in Atlanta. His first solo exhibition was held at the Ann Jacob Gallery in Atlanta. After moving to Los Angeles in 1990, Marcucci worked at Disney Imagineering in signage and graphic design, for the EuroDisney park in Serris/Coupvray, France. His first California exhibition was held at the Creative Art Center Gallery in Burbank. Marco Casentini: Drive In Born in La Spezia, Italy in 1961, Marco Casentini was brought up surrounded by large metropolitan structures. Inspired by urban spaces, Casentini’s work is an abstraction of geometrical architecture. Both chaotic and serene, his work rejects the concept of a compositional center which has always been a historically important approach to traditional Italian and European art; a choice that allows the spectator’s eye to focus on the painting as a whole. As individual paintings they add rhythmic tension to otherwise quiet and relaxing spaces, thereby achieving the ability to evoke emotions through his striking juxtapositions of color and complexity of shape and composition rather than through the use of concrete imagery. His early work was composed from advanced planning, notes and precise drawings. Over time Casentini felt this implementation gave his work an undesirable machine-like quality. In an attempt to breathe intimacy back into his work he stopped planning and began relying on his own intuition and improvisation. Galleries exhibiting Casentini’s paintings are often transformed into vibrant and immersive installations that match the colors and patterns of the work on display. Wall paintings are developed in relation to the particular interior space involved and are birthed separately from the work on display. Once together, the paintings are no longer isolated and instead interact harmoniously with each other and the space as a whole. In doing so Casentini is able to develop a complex relationship with the larger space and modify its perception by the viewer. It is virtually impossible for one to separate the paintings from the installation due to being encompassed within a body of shapes and colors that communicate with each other with such intense solidarity. Marco Casentini attended Accademia di Belle Arti and College of Art in Carrara, Italy, resides both in Los Angeles and Milan today and has exhibited internationally with galleries in Italy, the United States, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Australia, and Austria, exhibiting over 40 solo shows since 1983. Max Coppeta Max Coppeta is an artist for whom the heritage of traditional kinetic art, developed throughout the last century, rests heavily on his shoulders. This movement is thought to have begun in Europe with the optical experiments of artists such as Vasarely, but the real birth of a specific kinetic art can be attributed to the studies of those influenced by the group of Argentinian artists who moved to Paris in 1958, creating the GRAV movement at the Denise Renè Gallery. Coppeta’s artistic research centres on a number of fundamental aspects: the countless possible views which a work of art offers the onlooker, the necessary and inevitable participation of the spectator in the enjoyment of the work—which may be defined as a kinetic aspect of the whole—and the distortion of visual perception. The artist’s Synthetic Rains were created by calculating and calibrating the fall of a crystalline liquid onto a glass support, with maniacal precision. The descent of the drop is regulated by a gesture that is a function of the time it takes for the drop to fall, its space and distance from the support, and occasionally the climatic conditions of drying. There are always more than two drops and two glass supports, which are aligned in such a way that the drops of liquid are encompassed by one another visually, with such precision that the onlooker may look through their succession. The resulting view appears distorted, giving the observer an impression of being deformed, through a kind of destabilizing vision. This experience may be defined as a journey within vision. A movement, enacted as the onlooker is placed in front of the work, determines an unreal movement in the piece; the user, relating physically to the art through his or her movement, gets an impression of him or herself that may be defined as a new “discovery” or a new kind of visual perception. Max Coppeta was born in Sarno; he received a Bachelor’s in art at Accademia di Belle Arti Napoli in Naples, and a Master’s in Interaction Design at Istituto Superiore Design in Torino, Barcelona and Stockholm. He currently lives and works in Bellona. Nicola Evangelisti The central theme of Nicola Evangelisti’s work focuses on visual perception and how the onlooker relates to his works and the effects created by light radiating from them. Trained with traditional materials and techniques, Evangelisti’s practice originates and evolves from a legacy of Italian sculpture. Experimentation led the artist to follow what he describes as “a transcendent path:” using crystals, mirrors, glass, holograms and LEDs, his works gradually dematerialize in time, ultimately becoming pure light in the form of video projections that interact with urban space. Most of the artist’s work explores the relationship between order and chaos as well as other cosmological theories. Hexagons is conceptually inspired by the theme of sacred geometry. Consisting of a structure made from thirteen reflecting hexagons that in turn form another hexagonal image, the sculpture is based on the principle of self-similarity in universal structures. The work, seen as a whole, superimposes the archetypal image of the flower of life, symbol of birth and creation, which represents a constant in different cultures and beliefs throughout the history of Man. The diagram features the same form as the single mirrored parts, creating a correspondence between detail and the whole, a fractal development which could, in theory, continue in an infinity of scales, thus forming a continuity between microcosm and macrocosm. The lines of electroluminescent wire crossing the hexagons creates a complicated weave, wherein the five Platonic solids can simultaneously be perceived. The “constellation”—inspired by Kepler’s theory of polyhedra in which polyhedral faces are continually extended until they meet again—is formed by intertwining luminescent fibres that create the illusion of a diamond structure, wherein different coexisting regular polygons can be distinguished. If Evangelisti’s work is wholly contemporary in terms of technological composition, it is rooted in an ancient historic and artistic heritage: Roman mosaics. Hexagons draws inspiration from the modular geometry found in Roman tessellations. The aesthetics of the home have always been a vivid and faithful mirror of culture: if we consider the characteristics of the Roman domus—and especially what is left of such mansions in Pompeii—one of the essential aspects appears to be the way rooms are divided and arranged in space, forming a domestic plan with precise and complex geometries, as Vitruvio described so instructively in his “De Architectura”. The geometric elements used to decorate sumptuous patrician mansions formed symmetrical images which often featured symbols associated with war: swords, daggers, and stylized mythological creatures, testimonials of a civilization that never ceased to transcend itself. This is the peculiar “thirst for power” which, in the role of master of the Roman mansion, took the form of elaborate decorations. Nicola Evangelisti was born in Bologna, Italy, and graduated with a degree in sculpture from the Bologna Fine Arts Academy. In 2016, his solo show beWARe opened at Area 35 Art Gallery in Milan; analyzing the emotional states induced by violence and mass media propaganda, it explores the social and political themes related to war and terrorism. August 26 - October 22, 2017 Back to list

Constructs < Back Previous Valerie Wilcox Constructs Using a myriad of salvaged and repurposed materials, artist Valerie Wilcox creates compositions that explore the associations and contradictions between abstract shapes, mark-making, and painting. Wood, plaster, paint, textiles, cardboard, and other architectural media are sourced, then assembled into abstracted arrangements. Wilcox’s Constructs series demonstrates this process clearly. From afar, these works appear to be two-dimensional; their colors and shapes meld into a singular plane. Upon closer inspection, the dynamic interactions between materials are unmistakable. Each part becomes a unique and dimensional entity, creating a dialogue between structural elements. To Wilcox, these materials are given a second chance. Highlighting the flaws and imperfections of her source media, her work provides an optimistic outlook on society’s ability to reinvent itself. Her compositions elevate the simple textures and colors of her raw resources. They transcend their base materiality and take on new meaning. Next

back to list Hot Tea Eric Rieger, a.k.a. HOTTEA, is a public installation artist from Minneapolis, Minnesota who creates work of a playful, graphic and ephemeral nature. He typically utilizes a single medium in his work – yarn – not only because of the intrinsic cultural value of yarn, but also because of the range and flexibility that this unique material gives him as an artist.

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back to list Amir Fallah Amir H. Fallah creates paintings, sculptures, and installations that utilize personal history as an entry point to discuss race, representation, the body, and the memories of cultures and countries left behind. Through this process, the artist’s works employ nuanced and emotive narratives that evoke an inquiry about identity, the immigrant experience, and the history of portraiture.