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Up First People, First Community Bruce Love It is often forgotten that the true history of places such as Lancaster extends far beyond the range of pioneer settlement. In fact, Native communities have been existing within the Antelope Valley and surrounding areas for some 12,000 years or more. As such, it is important to remember that these Native populations have been here much longer than commonly acknowledged, and are still here! To this end, First People, First Communities attempts to honor the Antelope Valley’s First People by recognizing this extensive history of local Native populations and engaging with living tribal members. Through a collection of cultural artifacts, photographs and quotes from tribal elders, First People, First Communities offers a glimpse into the true time depth of Native American presence in the Antelope Valley as well as the significant role these groups play in contemporary society. Here, the past and present are merged to assert the extensive role of Native Americans within our community. This exhibit bridges the time span, connecting present-day Native peoples with their far-reaching past while offering perspectives that are often neglected in contemporary narratives. This exhibit was initially inspired by the Lancaster Museum of Art and History’s wish to dedicate the land the museum is on to the people who lived here first. To do so, we reached out to Dr. Bruce Love, an Antelope Valley resident, anthropologist, and archaeologist, who collaborated with local tribal communities. Dr. Love earned his Ph.D in anthropology from UCLA in the 1980s, and has since worked to build and maintain relationships between archaeologists, anthropologists and contemporary tribal communities within the Antelope Valley and surrounding areas. Acknowledgements are made to participating tribal communities including S errano, Chemehuevi, Kawaiisu, Kitanemuk, and Tataviam , as well as Paiute . Special thanks are made to Tribal Elders Charles Wood, Ralph Girado, Lucille Girado Hicks, Ted Garcia, Kim Marcus, and Ernest Siva for their contributions, as well as Tejon Indian Tribe chairman Octavio Escobedo for providing the portrait and quote from the last Kitanemuk chief, Chief Juan Lozada. First People, First Communities Panel Discussion with Tribal Leaders Thursday, July 16, 2020 | 6 PM Moderated by: Dr. Bruce Love Panelists: James Ramos, State Assemblyman, Serrano Charles Wood, Chairman, Chemehuevi Indian Tribe Sandra Hernandez , Executive Committee Secretary, Tejon Indian Tribe (Kitanemuk) Rudy Ortega, Jr., Tribal President, Fernandeño -Tataviam Band of Mission Indians June 2021-October 2022 Back to list

Up Woodland Creatures Robin Raznick Join us for an extraordinary artist residency at the Prime Desert Woodland Preserve, featuring renowned artist and naturalist, Robin Raznick. With her captivating Woodland Creatures Workshop series, you'll embark on a creative journey through the heart of nature. Mark your calendars for these engaging sessions: 1. October 7th, 10:00 AM - 1:30 PM Woodland Desert Tortoise Education and Portraits: Sketchbooks and More! Explore the fascinating world of desert tortoises while capturing their essence in your sketchbook. Dive into the enchanting details of these remarkable creatures. 2. November 4th, 9:00 AM - 1:00 PM Woodland Birdwalk: Bring Your Sketchbook from Workshop I and Create Watercolor and Mixed Media Bird Portraits Immerse yourself in the world of avian wonders during a guided birdwalk. Use your sketches from the first workshop as a foundation to create vibrant watercolor and mixed media bird portraits. 3. December 2nd (Times to be Announced) Woodland Insects and Creepy Crawlies: Bring Your Sketchbooks and Create Some 3D/ Sculptural Paintings Delve into the microcosm of woodland insects and creepy crawlies as you transform your sketches into three-dimensional, sculptural paintings. Stay tuned for exact session times. 4. New Date January 27th, 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM Desert Creatures Soft Sculpture: Mixed Material Beanbag Sculptures Discover the art of crafting mixed-material beanbag sculptures inspired by the desert's unique creatures. Let your creativity take shape in this hands-on, soft sculpture workshop. These workshops offer a rare opportunity to blend artistry and nature, enhancing your connection to the environment. Embrace the chance to learn, create, and be inspired by the diverse creatures of the Prime Desert Woodland Preserve. October 7, 2023 - January 27, 2024 Back to list

Brandon Kim < Back October 18th, 2020 By Brandon Kim The last time I touched this journal was three weeks ago. You see, since I was so preoccupied with the cruel yearly abscission, I simply could not be bothered to put everything aside to update my own journal. My maple leaf siblings and I all were carefully administered by the tree we grew on throughout our entire lives. We lived almost leisurely, but there is always a catch to everything that seems too good to be true. It would never have come to my mind that we would all be abandoned by the very maple tree that supported us when resources began to run short. I have chosen to move past the decision of being left behind to die on the concrete sidewalk instead of sulking about the decision that was made. I should have seen it coming from a mile away, but I did not know any better a few months ago. In the previous months, I remember clinging onto the maple tree that gave me life, only looking down and waiting for my impending doom that would soon arrive. Every fall, hundreds of us maple leaves would be left behind and abandoned without a moment of hesitation as a means to conserve resources and survive the harsh, cold winter. The process would repeat itself every year; no matter how strongly connected the leaves were with the heartless maple tree, they were always cut off selfishly. Our hard work to gather resources for the tree would be disregarded every time. After each harsh winter ended, the remaining leaves that somehow managed to live through the winter despite being left on the ground continued to rot. It would only be a matter of time before all the leaves wholly decomposed. Some continue to sulk about the tree’s unsympathetic and cruel methods of taking all the resources for itself, and the rest just were not able to make it through the winter or were moved to a completely different location in the cold gusts of wind. I feel betrayed rather than depressed as I lie here on the cold sidewalk. We are ultimately used and given special treatment only for a certain amount of time, and it feels that all of our hard work was for nothing. Our existence as maple leaves is an enormous contribution to why the very tree that abandoned us is standing there to this day. Now our only option is to watch the new maple leaves grow in our place, not knowing what they are in for, as we continue to slowly rot away on the pavement with the maple tree’s back turned to us. Previous Next

< Back Sonja Schenk Light for the Sun II The intersection of the natural world and humankind is key to Sonja Schenk’s artistic practice, which explores this convergence through a variety of forms: painting, sculpture, installation, and time-based media. She is interested in geography, anthropology, the future of humanity and how these elements reflect on modern life. Much of Schenk’s work is site specific, utilizing research of the area to create individualized projects that in her words, “fit[s] a place.” Schenk’s practice operates on several levels: historical referents, conceptual underpinnings, technological innovation, and tangible, physical works that often invoke transformation. These elements are reflected in the multilayered concepts that are present in her artworks. Previous Next

One Exhibit. Nine Unique Artists. Up Structure Various Artists One Exhibit. Nine Unique Artists. In every hero’s journey there comes a point of no return, a single moment in time and space where a decision must be made: to move from the familiarity and comfort of their home or take their first steps into a larger, increasingly perilous and complex world. This human experience is a culmination of the physical and metaphysical structures that are constructed by their interactions across time. Each of the artists featured in Structure, explore the dimensions in which humans organize inner and outer spaces, presenting their unique interpretation and understanding of transformational architectures - and the permeable boundaries that exist between them. The artwork featured in Structure is presented in a wide array of media, from physical sculpture to small-scale collage, illustrating mental spaces and blurring the line between the tangible and intangible elements of life. HK Zamani, Kimberly Brooks, Coleen Sterritt, and Cinta Vidal create work that visualizes time, space, and structure through the lens of human experience. Time plays a key role in the artwork of Matjames Metson, Chelsea Dean, Stevie Love, and Jim Richard, all of whom source their material almost entirely from past eras. Mela M, also influenced heavily by the concept of time, instead looks to future architecture and social structures. Ultimately, these artists hone in on the present social systems, their origins, and the futures they hold. The art presented in Structure provides visual commentary on the spaces where immaterial framework meets concrete structure, calling attention to the system failures of the past. Present issues such as climate change, political corruption, and social inequity are all the result of these archaic constructions. Through lived experiences, the interactions of the interior and exterior resonate beyond any one individual, transforming the communities and environments that so many call home, for, as author Kamal Ravikant writes, “Once you cross the threshold, you will never be the same." HK Zamani HK Zamani is an Iranian-American multidisciplinary artist and founder of PØST, an alternative exhibition space in Los Angeles. Teetering between the obscure and the objective, his work examines the synthesis of artistic medium, conception, and interaction. Interplay between structural materiality and metaphysical interpretation are prominent in Zamani’s work. He uses this exchange of the indefinite to comment on the current social structures and expectations of society. The physical use of artistic media is put into conversation with the representation of cultural overlap. Body and Immaterial: A Conversation of Sculpture and Painting, A 20 year Survey of Works by HK Zamani comments on the relationship between two prominent art mediums. The exhibition includes works such as Fashion of the Veil (2008), Prague Dome (2004), the Inadvertent Protagonists series, and many more. Works vary in medium. Sculptural and material elements showcase the skeletal and structural aspect of the work. Rigid frameworks such as the metal geodesic support on Prague Dome (2004) are juxtaposed with softer, more gentle textiles that make up the walls of the same work, calling to ideas of duality. Paintings provide preliminary and complimentary concepts that coincide with the sculptural work. Abstracted forms presented in his paintings also mimic the figures that can be seen in works such as Inadvertent Protagonists and Fashion Erasure I-18 (2021), noting the multiplicity of possibility and interpretation discussed in the work. HK Zamani received his Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art from California State University, Dominguez Hills and his Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Claremont Graduate University. He is the recipient of City of Los Angeles Getty Trust and California Community Foundation grants. In 1995, Zamani founded POST, in 2009 it became PØST. His work is included in the collections at Berkeley Museum of Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He currently works and resides in Los Angeles. Jim Richard Through a myriad of paintings, drawings, and collages, contemporary artist Jim Richard construes interior and exterior depictions of Modern architecture. Since the late 1970s, Richard has created a profusion of modernist interiors loaded with art and kitsch objects that settle into multi-hued graphic fields. Richard manipulates interior aesthetics from the 1960s and 70s warping the display of art influenced by the modernist idea of a utopian society. The adornment of objects within Richard’s collages is strategically curated from a selection of 1960s and 70s home decor magazines and furniture advertisements. Visually, his work fuses elements of photorealism, hard-edge painting, and collage, resulting in a 2-D abstract style imbued with an array of rich colors and patterns. Richard’s body of work has a persistent focus on the recontextualization of Modernist art and design. Absent occupants, the clash of decorative objects and imagery against the busy patterns of Jim Richard’s collages evoke the presence of an art collector. The claustrophobic slew of sleek furniture and ornamental ephemera is Richard’s satirical yet humorous commentary on the ambitious goals of Modernism and Modernist art. At this point in time, many artists were striving for pure originality, seeking to advance their art practice beyond acceptable forms of "high art.” By structuring the composition of his collages around curated art-objects Richard’s architectural frameworks act and feel like a mausoleum putting outdated aesthetics and politics to rest. Originally born in Port Arthur, Texas, Richard currently lives and works in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is represented by the Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans and Inman Gallery in Houston. Richard received his Bachelor of Science from Lamar State College of Technology and his Master of Fine Art from the University of Colorado. Richard's work has been exhibited in New York at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Drawing Center, Oliver Kamm Gallery, and Jeff Bailey Gallery. For several years, he taught painting, served as a Graduate Coordinator, and was in charge of the Visiting Artists Program at the University of New Orleans served as Graduate Coordinator. Richard's paintings can be found in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, The New Orleans Museum of Art, and the Houston Museum of Fine Art. Kimberly Brooks Contemporary American artist Kimberly Brooks examines identity, history, and memory by utilizing a combination of landscape, abstraction, and figuration in her work. Stemming from a long tradition of American painting, her scenes depict subject matter that meets the edges of realism and abstraction. Examination of feminine identity is also present in a majority of her work. Projects such as The Stylist Project (2010), Fever Dreams (2019), I Have a King Who Does Not Speak (2015), as well as many others include the depiction of women in relation to their surroundings. Their identities and histories are depicted in loose brushstrokes, hinting to ambiguity and fleeting memories.The hand of the artist is apparent; the painterly quality of her work stands out in her varying compositions. Painting Architecture (2021) showcases the use of the built environment as landscape and subject matter. Both interior and exterior scenes are depicted: Rococo walls adorned with paintings hung salon style, arches and tilework of a mosque, an outdoor gate and pathway flanked by foliage. While these spaces may seem innocuous and arbitrary, these environments carry strong associations that are informed by their architectural styles. Brooks calls forth the provenance and significance of these spaces. The line between contemporary and antiquity is blurred. Instead of deviation, similarities are shown. A quiet, more meditated atmosphere is harmonious between the works. The play of light provides a still and almost objective showcase of these environments. There is a formal rigidity that is present between all of the works that is made apparent by the strong perspective lines that indicate the boundaries of these spaces. Juxtaposed to this is again, the use of loose brushstrokes and painterly techniques that are a mainstay of her practice. Kimberly Brooks was born in New York City, New York and raised in Mill Valley, California. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts in Literature from the University of California, Berkeley and studied painting at the University of California, Los Angeles and Otis College of Art & Design. Brooks hosts monthly artists talks on her discourse platform First Person Artist and is also the author of The New Oil Painting. Her works have been showcased internationally. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Matjames Metson Employing skillful assemblage and woodworking techniques, Matjames Metson incorporates found antique objects into elaborate mixed-media sculptures using only paint, glue, and matchsticks from the present era. The re-purposing of discarded and forgotten objects is essential to Metson's work; he spends a great deal of time seeking out items from abandoned buildings, estate sales, and friends' garages, among other places where one might find momentos and personal items. For Metson, each object has an assumed history — a resonance of an unknown past — which triggers an inherent emotional response in the viewer. As a survivor of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina disaster, which displaced more than a million people from the Gulf Coast, Metson is driven by the concept of survival in addition to his obsession with hoarding forgotten objects. The hurricane destroyed his artwork, community, possessions, and livelihood, forcing him to relocate to Los Angeles with only his two dogs and the clothes on his back. The relics used in his artwork are assembled together in a way that reflects Metson's existential need to pick up the pieces of his life and create a new structure for his future while remembering and honoring the past. In Tower, Metson utilizes and modifies myriad antique objects including time-worn rulers, pocket knives, keys, fountain pen nibs, printed ephemera, and children's toys. The wooden materials used to construct the architectural elements of the piece were sourced from vintage furniture, doors, and cigar boxes. Incorporated into the assemblage are Metson's signature motifs (wasps, eyes, skulls, rabbits) and phrases (such as "HARD WORK" and "HEAT KING"). At the top of the structure is a hand-carved golden wasp, a sample of the symbolism used by Metson, and an exemplification of his explorations in craftsmanship. The sculpture also features a crank-operated kaleidoscope displaying an array of vintage photographs. Matjames Metson is a self-taught artist, carpenter, and architect known for his assemblage sculptures and his illustrative work. He has completed several graphic novels including Survivor's Guild, an autobiographical account of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. His work has been shown at Coagula Curatorial gallery, the Fowler Museum, and the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, among others. He was born in Charlotteville, New York and currently lives and creates in Los Angeles, California. Mela M MANIFEST STRUCTURES FROM THE IMAGINAL is a new body of work from Mela that captures the artist's concept of "a provocative stream of consciousness as the past informs the present… to imagine multiple future possibilities." For Mela, these works bear witness to species-driven archetypes that result in how humans structure their lives on a physical and emotional level. The acceleration of science and technology have made these cultural systems increasingly complex, and these intricacies are reflected in Mela's structural representations. Mela strives to create visualizations of the different layers of human consciousness as imagined through multiple dimensions and timelines, and hopes her work challenges upcoming artists to draw inspiration from this not-so-common era. There are five distinct but related components from throughout the museum that make up MANIFEST STRUCTURES FROM THE IMAGINAL: a set of four acrylic paintings titled THE EVOLUTION OF THE OMEGATROPOLIS THROUGH FOUR SEASONS OF ARCHITECTONIC METAMORPHOSIS (lobby atrium), the hand-drawn CITYSCAPES OF ARCHITECTONIC METAMORPHOSIS FOR THE COMMON ERA (wall leading to the Jewel Box), a symbolic monument titled THE TOTEM OF THE MOON CASTLE (Jewel Box), and two architectural wooden sculptures titled THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE MOVES THROUGH IRREGULAR ANGLES IN A RISING WALL FROM AN ARCHITECTONIC CITY WITHOUT NAME OR PLACE OR TIME and THE WALL TEMPLE AT THE VANISHING POINT (Ralph and Virginia Bozigian Family Gallery). Mela M has an MFA from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California and an MFA from the Technological Institute of Art and Textile Design in Belarus. Her work has garnered national and international recognition with over twenty solo exhibitions, twenty-seven museum group exhibitions, and dozens of group shows in colleges and universities. She has been honored with numerous prizes and awards internationally, and her work can be found in the permanent collections of the Long Beach Museum of Art in California, the Southwestern Oregon College at Coos Bay in Oregon, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belarus. Stevie Love Challenging herself to explore and adopt new art forms, contemporary artist Stevie Love has expanded her creative practice by taking on the role of adobe builder. In 2001, after attending a four-day workshop at Southwest Solar Adobe School in Bosque, New Mexico, Love and her husband Dr. Bruce Love decided to build their very own adobe house in Juniper Hills, California overlooking the Mojave Desert. Architecturally, the concept of an adobe house is an ancient building technique common amongst historic civilizations in the Americas and the Middle East. The term “adobe” is Spanish for mudbrick or Arabic for brick. Honoring the traditional techniques of adobe building, Love and a small crew hand-sculpted each brick and structural element of her adobe home. Throughout the seven years Love constructed her adobe home, she photo-documented the turbulent yet immersive experience constructing the home, as photographs displayed in this exhibition. From laying the foundation to picking tiles, the Loves put in a great amount of research and effort in building an authentic yet personalized adobe house. When building the foundation, walls and overall base structure of their adobe dream home, Love committed to only using materials within walking distance from the building site. Love also made sure to align the structural orientations of the house with the Earth and sky axis, taking the seasons into account just as the first adobe builders once did. Furthermore, throughout the Love house, one finds design components from a diverse and international pool of influences. For instance, the threshold to enter the structure is fashioned with ancient wooden doors from India. As visitors cross the entryway, they are met with an alcove (a small nook or cut-out in the wall), the Loves decorated with saints and angels to protect all who enter the home. In the master and guest bath one finds Japanese and coin tiles, fossils, and Chinese half-boulder sinks. In the Loves adobe residence, the list of obscure decor goes on — every cranny, cabinet, and doorway in-between tells a unique story. Outside of hand-building her own adobe home, Stevie Love is well known for her self-declared addiction to acrylic paint and its ability to create autonomous forms. She is widely recognized for her paint-sculpture hybrids, inspired by intense energy, nature, visual culture, and open experimentation. Love earned her Bachelor of Fine Art degree from California State University, San Bernardino and her Master of Fine Art degree from Claremont Graduate University. Her work has been featured in private and public spaces across the United States, Asia, and Europe and can be found in the permanent collections of the Lancaster Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA, and the Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, CA. October 2 - December 26, 2021 Back to list

Up Contemporary Landscape: From the Desert to the Sea Various Artists Being Here and There Curated by Sant Khalsa Main Gallery Sant Khalsa: Paving Paradise Atrium 1st & 2nd Floors Carol Sears: Linescapes South Gallery Hollis Cooper: In Flux Education Gallery Kim Abeles: Shared Skies East Gallery Julius Eastman: State of Wonder Vault Gallery Jill Sykes: Yucca Forest Jewel Box Gallery Kelly Berg: Dangerous Transcendence Wells Fargo Gallery Being Here and There Curated by Sant Khalsa Being Here and There features photographic works by twenty-six artists whose imagery derives from their individual and contemplative experience of place. Situated among an array of topographies and ecosystems from the desert to the sea, each of their creative works provides us with a unique view and perspective of a spectacular landscape, unlike any other. These artists are contemporary surveyors, seeking to depict and give meaning to this place where we live. For many artists, “place” profoundly influences their ideas, process and production and this is certainly reflected in these artists’ work. Their vision is diverse and vast like the landscape and people of Southern California, which is characterized by populated urban clusters and suburban sprawl, congested freeways, crowded workplaces, malls and amusement parks in contrast to the seemingly infinite ocean, towering mountains, expansive deserts, immense blue skies and quiet solitude. We live in a delightful climate where outdoor living is taken for granted yet we are troubled by earthquakes, droughts, fires and floods. The destiny we have manifested in the American West—and more specifically in Southern California—is riddled with contradictions and complexities. We awake each morning feeling fortunate to live in paradise. Yet, as our day unfolds, we are reminded of the actions of history and scars left on the land. Each artist’s work in the exhibition is distinct in its concept, content and approach, providing us with an opportunity to view and gain understanding of the significance of the everyday – that which is extraordinary within one’s experience as well as the ordinary and often overlooked. The subjects of these photographs vary greatly with certain artists compelled to address our human impact on the natural world and ecological issues including water use and scarcity, air quality, land development and the detritus of our consumer culture, while others focus on visual aesthetics, the beauty of light and color and the sometimes harmonious juxtapositions of nature and the built environment. For several artists the experience of time—capturing the illusive fleeting moment or extending it—is paramount to their artistic concerns. Artworks that recall histories and memories along with premonitions of the future suggest that we ponder our human acts and inaction on the land and in our communities. Demarcation and the creation of ambiguous boundaries are also explored as we traverse through contested terrains. While most of the artists choose to leave the sites of their photographs untouched, there are a few who alter the scene or intervene in distinct ways or even place themselves within the image. Additionally, artists who have altered and added to the surface of the photograph, by cutting, scratching and sewing to further define their ideas, subject and character of their work are included to demonstrate the breadth of approaches among artists working today. Finally, images are flawlessly composited to present astonishing detail and expansive spaces while other works are produced with multiple photographs assembled together to replicate the artist’s visual and perceptual experience of time and space. These photographic works developed from each artist’s creative impulse to visually articulate and convey their independent vision of our remarkable Southern California landscape. Clearly evident is their expertise as perceptive observers and visual poets who savor and artfully capture the experience of being present in this place we call home. - Sant Khalsa Sant Khalsa: Paving Paradise I often refer to the Santa Ana River as “my river.” Never intending “my” to allude to ownership or control but rather an intimate relationship one develops over time with a lover or a dear old friend. The Santa Ana River serves as a source of vital sustenance for my body, mind and creative spirit. The river is the life source that nourishes the earth and every living cell in the community where I reside. The river has taught me the critical interdependence between humans and the natural world and inspires me to make art that reflects on my life experience and relationship with place. I have been photographing the 96-mile-long Santa Ana River and its expansive watershed for nearly three decades. My work is intended to create a contemplative space where one can sense the subtle and profound connections between themselves, the natural world and our constructed settings. My often disquieting photographs address complex environmental and societal issues and reflect upon my various ideas concerning my/our relationship with the river -- as place of community, economic resource, recreational site, natural habitat, sanctuary and both source of life and destruction. Paving Paradise refers to the current state of the river and the conflicting terrain of natural riverbeds and dams, flood plains and tract home communities, riparian wetlands and concrete channels. I was first drawn to the Santa Ana because of its natural beauty—the vast open landscape, the starkness of its often-dry riverbeds and the power of its occasional rushing waters. The river remains a source of creative inspiration as I continue to depict the critical role it plays within the region, my home since 1975. —Sant Khalsa Carol Sears: Linescapes Los Angeles-based artist Carol Sears was born in Sydney, Australia in 1942. In the early 1960s she studied at Sydney’s prestigious Julian Ashton Studio. Sears moved to San Diego in 1965 where she was employed in the newly established art department of the University of California San Diego. There she came into contact with experimental artists such as John Baldessari, Miriam Schapiro, Harold Cohen and Newton & Helen Harrison. Since 1972, when she moved to Los Angeles, Sears studied life drawing at UCLA and sculpture at the Claire Hanzakas studio while exhibiting and pursuing independent studio work of her own. Sears classical art education in Australia and her training in more modern idioms in California all translate into highly expressive artworks overlaid with the influence of such modern masters as Matisse, Picasso and de Kooning. She painted a diverse array of subject matter: from portraits and figures to studio and plein-air landscapes, floral and wildlife subjects and whatever else she thought others would fancy. Sears notes “it was a burden to be able to work in whatever style or medium I wanted and sought to redefine my path based on my early years as a young artist who first appeared at the Julian Ashton School of Art in Sydney, innocent, idealistic and free of any baggage.” MOAH is pleased to present this new body of work, where Sears strives to retain the treasures of a long, full, creative life accumulated through decades of experience, but to use them with the clarity of the young mind. It is a balance she seeks; to be centered but spontaneous; to welcome “accidents” and to be intuitive, in touch with the unconscious and the natural self; to relish discovery. Linescapes is a visual record of this new beginning. The exhibition encompasses all that she has done, seen and wanted to do throughout her artistic career but could never give herself permission before this moment. Sears is not alone in this struggle. By telling her story and painting her paintings, Sears gives permission to artists who may be resisting finding their own voices in an art market driven by commercialism rather than innovation. Sears’ abstractions depict her personal vocabulary, an independent voice of remarkable light, scale, color and texture coming through the spirit of intuition and walking into her own light. Sears explains a deep feeling of belonging when she is painting in her studio, “I feel whole when I am in my studio with my canvases and drawing pads, interpolating and translating the memories and impressions of my native Australia. The symbols and metaphors in my art reflect the qualities of texture, light and color particular to the immense Australian landscape and seascape. To these influences I’ve added my appreciation of other landscapes and the aesthetics and values of other cultures garnered from my world travels.” Sears is represented by Coagula Curatorial in Chinatown, Los Angeles and has enjoyed solo shows at Lawrence Fine Art - East Hampton, New York and group shows at Andrew Shire Gallery, Los Angeles CA, TAG (The Artists Gallery) Santa Monica, CA and UCLA Art Department. Sears continues to live and work in Los Angeles. Hollis Cooper: In Flux The work of Los Angeles-based artist Hollis Cooper straddles the line between site-specific installation, drawing and painting. Cooper’s practice engages perceptual, painterly and physical space in ways influenced by concepts of virtual reality and the Baroque, where multiple spatial models that have been folded and spliced into one another coexist in harmony. Into these hyperspaces, Cooper re-introduces elements of Baroque excess and theatricality, such as intense color and visual cues that break the two-dimensional plane. Cooper’s approach towards creating painterly space is intimately connected with the viewer's ability to activate that space, which includes not only the flat surfaces of the painted elements, but the entire architectural space in which the installation resides. The viewer is encouraged to interact in unconventional ways; movement, changes in distance and shifts in sight-line are rewarded. In a manner reminiscent of Baroque illusionism, multiple privileged viewing spots are created where the work settles into predetermined perceptual configurations. These paintings do not sit still; instead, they exist within a responsive matrix that rejects a traditional, more fixed engagement with the idea of the painted object. Cooper’s current practice is grounded in tenets of Supermodernism; specifically, ideas of "non-place." Her source material comes from digital drawings of theoretical architecture: 3D chatroom renderings, video game environments and physical "non-places" such as airports and train stations. Rather than looking at "non-places" as transitory spaces lacking content or meaning, she regards them as loci of infinite possibility. Through the digitization process, Cooper detaches these source drawings from a fixed state and focuses on their mutability and evolution. She considers these drawings to be a language in and of themselves, a foundational element used universally throughout her work and she exploits the flexibility of their original vector format to make them function at extreme scales and in multiple media. Like expansive landscapes, the installations perform at the largest scale, yet assembled modularly in situ, they respond to the interior architectural environment in which they exist, activating the space in a way that negates the "non-place-ness" of the museum's white walls, even if only for the length of the exhibition. The animations, in their constant state of flux, references the transitory nature of the original sources and operate on the viewer in a decidedly different manner, as they become worlds unto themselves, pulling the viewer out of the moment, for a moment. Throughout her work is a sense of fracturing, motion and reformation in the way the installations are layered and painted, as well as in the controlled chaos of the animation. This cycle also occurs in the studio, as she remixes iterations of form as each piece is constructed. Thus, these works that began as a cataloging of non-place are imparted meaning through the rhythmic (re)inscription of their own history. For all aspects of the work, whether physical or virtual, there is a sense of responsiveness, of negotiation, of push-and-pull. Cooper intends for these works to have both a machine and human aesthetic, becoming a cyborg creation of sorts that is not just a formal exploration of spatial concepts, but the organic progeny of them – an evolution of form, responding to the computer, her self and her surroundings. Kim Abeles: Shared Skies The work of Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist Kim Abeles includes many genres and involves specialists in diverse fields of study and community groups of all ages. She works on projects worldwide and maintains an open mind to multiple modes of visual art. Abeles focuses on subjects including the urban environment, feminism, aging, HIV/AIDS, labor, mental health and collective memory. Through the years, Abeles has acquired a uniquely broad skill-set for art making. Technically, she creates through an unlimited range of materials and conceptually, the development of her work heightened her interest in community, public venues and art’s relevance for society. In 2012, her journals, artists books and process-related objects were archived at the internationally renowned Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art. The preparation of these materials gave her a fresh perspective on the relationship between the biographical and environmental themes in her work. As her work progressed, the inter-relationship between art and community has become seamless. Abeles notes “Art that provides a viewer with meaningful portrayals of nature and society is in service to re-engage a person with the physical world; this is where positive change has a possibility to take place. If one does not love the world, that same person will not imagine a need to protect it.” In the Shared Skies series, Abeles invites people from all walks of life, all over the world to submit a photograph of the sky in their part of the world. Abeles selects from the submittals and creates the horizontal slivers of sky as a kind of archive of the atmosphere and the element we all share: the air. Shared Skies speaks to the connections between global, local and personal. As people look toward the sky each morning, through the day or each night, the sky speaks to their personal and local concerns. In a global sense, we observe the effects of our environmental decisions and could find community through a seamless sky. From the Salt Flats of Bolivia to Grand Forks in the United States and Maasai Mara, Kenya to Pine Ridge, Oglala Sioux Tribe, our skies portray the connected parts of our place on this earth. The sky photographs for the project were collected through Kim Abeles’ journeys; from artists who participated as they travelled; and international friends through social media. Each sky is identified with the specific location and the name of the person who took the photograph. The sky photographs represent countries from the Arctic to Antarctica and all the continents. The project was originally commissioned by the YMCA, in association with the former Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles, California for a public artwork. Suspended sculptures with the skies are permanently installed in the lobby and entrance to the new Anderson-Munger Family YMCA in Koreatown. The art literally describes the global nature of the YMCA and the connections of people worldwide by having at its core, imagery of skies found around the globe. The exhibition of prints was displayed at the gallery of the National Center for Atmospheric Research located at the I.M. Pei building in Boulder, Colorado during Spring 2014. Abeles created 60 Days of Los Angeles Sky Patch (View to the East) by building a simple contraption for viewing a section of sky through a small opening. Each day, for sixty days, she made a painting to match the sky color of this spot of sky looking from downtown Los Angeles toward Riverside, California. The sixty paintings are the result of that process and a curiosity about sky blue. Among her many honors, Abeles has been a recipient of the Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Arts, California Community Foundation, Pollack-Krasner Foundation and the California Arts Council. She is a 2014/15 Lucas Visual Arts Fellow at the Montalvo Arts Center. She has created artwork in conjunction with a unique range of collaborators such as the California Bureau of Automotive Repair, California Science Center, Department of Mental Health and natural history museums in California, Colorado and Florida. In 1987, she innovated a method to create images from the smog in the air, and Smog Collectors brought her work to national and international attention. She has exhibited in 20+ countries, including large-scale installations in Vietnam, Thailand, Czech Republic, England, China and South Korea. Kim Abeles: Encyclopedia Persona A-Z toured the United States and throughout South America sponsored by the United States Information Agency. She has an MFA in Studio Art from the University of California Irvine and a BFA in Painting from Ohio University. Q & A with Julius Eastman: State of Wonder Q: What is your background? As a self-taught artist, art has always been an escape for me, something that takes you away. It has been a part of me ever since I can remember. As a kid growing up in the high desert I spent a lot of time outdoors. The desert was a place where my friends and I could go and dig subterranean hang outs, sculpt elaborate bike tracks; essentially do anything we wanted. Lancaster wasn’t always a place where a teen could really do much, especially for me, since I was on the seedier edge of town; the desert was what there was. I have spent my whole life in the desert and it still fascinates me. Q: What are you currently working on? For this exhibition I am working on new landscapes with acrylics on canvas and Bristol. One in particular shows the influence that Los Angeles, graffiti art and urban art have had on my work; it also depicts the water crisis that we as a region are facing. In addition, I am collaborating with a writer on a set of abstract images. The idea is to have each of the paintings paired with text to create a more specific narrative. I am also working on a decent sized installation project; another collaborative effort that is going to be a combination of re-purposed furniture cut into pieces, tiny figures and scaled down objects in a series of tiny rooms depicting life in the desert with people and animals. Q: What sources do you use for creating your pieces? Most of the imagery in my pieces—and in numerous cases—comes from my collective memory of an area that I am trying to recreate as opposed to using stock photography. Since I mainly paint from mental pictures and memory, I try to be in those elements as often as I can. Though I admit I do use some reference, I collect photos more for the memory than for later use. I study things and do sketches and drawings of things that I see in nature, I really enjoy creating an impression of those things. I watched this video of flowers going into bloom in accelerated time and they looked like fireworks bursting in air to me. I wanted to capture that and it caused me to look at plants and paint them in different ways. Memory is biased and it imbues everything with a saturating layer of feelings that cannot easily be separated from an image generated from memory and by hand. When a person does something by hand it is automatically subject to the same fragility and flaws that people have; it’s innately human. A photo can capture a moment or show us points of view that most might have missed and it takes a certain mind to do that too but creating that image by hand is an entirely different journey. From my point of view technology, as valuable a tool as it has become, is also taking something from us. It’s like we are, consciously or not, using technology as a tool to eliminate ourselves from any and every aspect of everyday life, even art. Q: What themes are you pursuing in your work? As a landscape painter, the high deserts of the western region have greatly impacted my work. There are strange microclimates and harsh conditions here that produce plants that have incredible character compared to plants that have grown in more stable conditions. We have harsh winds, extreme temperatures and droughts; couple that with the occasional El Niño and you have organisms that have been shaped by an unpredictable environment, organisms that have been through something and look like it. I have been to almost every state park in California and all of the major National parks in the region and there is no other biome that provides more interest in my opinion. At a glance the desert appears to be little more than a few sage bushes or Joshua trees and not much else, yet it has one of the greatest densities of life of any biome. Nothing is wasted or taken for granted and that is the lesson humanity can learn. As we move towards technology and away from instinct we are losing our spiritual connection to the land. Every tiny thing is part of an infinitely elaborate web of life that is delicately balanced. How a persons life can be affected by something as insignificant to us as an ant can seem impossible and yet everyday science vindicates this as we discover just how interconnected we are and how much we rely on the land as well as its creatures; one form of life relies on another and so on. Every living thing eventually links back to us, not to mention we make the largest impact of any creature and are among the most numerous. Q: How do these themes show up in your work? How can they not? As much as I try to have a solid idea of what I want to do as a piece, in the end when I wake up and pull back the curtains and it’s threatening to rain, it’s going into the piece. It’s an instant reaction. The weather in the AV has a certain melancholy luster to it that has always appealed to me so I paint it trying to convey that feeling. You know the feeling of being in the desert and needing the rain so bad you could cry when it does, or how the wind can blow every direction at once here somehow? We always seem to get the edge of all of the weather patterns around us, but never the full hit. Combine these elements with my fascination of the underground LA art scene, or at least it was still underground at the time, and you get these impressions of an area with hints of LA. My first exposure to “LA” art was through graffiti art, I remember going to Hollywood to see Melrose Ave. I was with some friends and we had gone down an alley right off Melrose and I saw forms of expression that were not “taught” in art classes or discussed in the art books I had seen. I was blown away. It was not limited to the back alleys either, there was art everywhere; some of it was commissioned in stores and on store fronts, and some of it was done in guerilla fashion: meaning It was stenciled onto the sidewalks, it was slapped onto every available surface with stickers or glued as small posters and even though it was thousands of different people, there was a common thread that made it urban that I can’t really describe except to say, that when you saw it you knew it was uniquely urban. Now of course, these things have made their way into mainstream society, I mean you can see graffiti style art on a Mountain Dew can or in a kids show, it’s everywhere. It’s not underground anymore, but the same mentality that spawned the guerilla art is the same movement that continues to push every envelope from the alleys to a gallery wall. Q: What are your goals as an artist? To be able to continue to paint and show work as often as I can. I think that I am not unlike any artist in the sense that I would love for art to be something that supports me and I plan to take this as far as I can in that regard. On a more personal level, I want to hone an ability to express something that passes from me to someone else and I don't want it to be shock value; I want it to be obvious and fragile like people are. I want to make landscape paintings that capture the feeling of an area as well as mirror the unique beauty that so many areas in our region have. I want people to be able to smell the dank desert air when they look at one of my works. I want art to remain something that captivates me. Jill Sykes: Yucca Forest Jill Sykes focuses on the silhouetted shapes of plants and the negative spaces between the branches and leaves. Based on this work, a few years ago she was commissioned to design an overall “pattern” of sycamore leaf shadows that were sandblasted onto the outside walls of a new home – Sycamore House – under construction in Pacific Palisades; the MOAH yucca trees follow a similar design concept. For the “Jewel Box” windows she decided to focus specifically on indigenous plants of the Mojave Desert. Driving back and forth on the highways between Los Angeles and Lancaster the tall and stately yuccas are everywhere. Beginning with some spontaneous iPhone photography, Sykes amassed dozens of images of the trees. This photographic research became the basis for drawings which ultimately were translated into 18 approximately 10’ high tree silhouettes cut out of white vinyl and adhered onto the inside of the “Jewel Box” windows. Clustered together on the glass the artist envisioned a “Yucca Forest,” with huge, lacey white blossoms in various stages of development floating in air above and beyond the blooming yuccas. She was also fascinated by the tall, burnt-out skeletal trees – beautiful, gnarly sentinels showing age and decay in the desert. The contrast was sensuous and dramatic. Looking close-up inside the museum, the viewer will be able to see the abstracted and amorphic shapes that ultimately form the individual trees; seen from a distance on the street below, the silhouetted yuccas will overlap each other and create more visual depth, ever changing depending upon where one stands. Sykes is drawn to the negative spaces of branches and leaves; the elegance and energy of natural forms and the visual dialog between figuration and abstraction. The random patterning of incumbent shadows and inherent contrasts affords an expressionistic push-pull, creating a lyrical flow in the shapes that spin a web across a sensuous, translucent surface. Ultimately what Sykes has come to realize about her work is that it is a search for a kind of serenity - a safe place. Rene Magritte once said, “I am painting a place where I want to be.” Jill Sykes was born and raised in Los Angeles and completed her formal art training at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles and the Academy of Art/Lone Mountain College in San Francisco. She worked as a graphic designer and illustrator in the fields of film and business advertising, animation and educational media, as well as designing and implementing countless corporate logos. Over time her work became focused on painting and in the late 1990's she enrolled at the Santa Monica School of Design, Art & Architecture. This led to her current work in oils, printmaking and now vinyl - all explorations of color, shape, movement and mood. Kelly Berg: Dangerous Transcendence In Dangerous Transcendence, artist Kelly Berg’s paintings ride the jagged edge between beauty and destruction. Through the use of acrylic paint, Berg creates textured gestural surfaces with accents of delicate enameled line work. The paintings invite the viewer into mysterious cataclysmic scenes in local and faraway landscapes. The local landscape is seen in Berg’s Vasquez Inferno, a panorama of wildfire engulfing Vasquez Rocks. Located just down the highway from Lancaster’s Museum of Art and History, this iconic geologic formation was made famous by its history of bandits and the imagination of Sci-fi Hollywood. Similarly, in El Diablo de Los Angeles, the viewer is looking through a window framed in thick black acrylic and pointing toward the glowing burning hills east of Los Angeles. This is a scene from the summer of 2009 when Berg moved west from Minnesota to her new home in Echo Park. She recalls walking out into the street at night and looking into the distance at the mountains behind Glendale “burning like the fires of hell.” Other paintings suggest distant places: volcanic islands in the Pacific Ocean, abstracted lightning scenes and fissures caused by earthquakes. Whether depicting near or far off landscapes, each painting presents the viewer with a personalized view that almost tricks one into thinking the disasters are a bit friendlier than in reality. Berg’s intent is to introduce audiences to a current global theme through an autobiographical point of view. The iridescent and metallic acrylics specific to these works give a jewel-like quality to dangerous phenomena, while the thick, sculpted black paint suggests the aftermath. Berg’s connection to extreme weather began in her native Minnesota. At age 12 she experienced a near miss with a tornado. The artist cites this experience and other close encounters as a major influence on the new direction in her work. In addition to reflecting on her personal familiarity with natural phenomena, Berg’s suite of paintings connects to the sublime. Defined as a sensation triggered by the perception of extreme expansiveness in nature, the sublime often refers to experiencing transcendent scenes and moments in the landscape where the awe and wonder of nature dwarfs one’s own self image. The psychological effects of experiencing the sublime are described as simultaneous feelings of fear and attraction for the danger and greatness of the natural world. Foreboding storm clouds, erupting volcanoes and overwhelming vistas have been a subject matter for artists working with the concept of the sublime throughout art history, as seen in the works of J.M.W. Turner, (1775 – 1851), Albert Bierstadt (1830 – 1902) and others of the Hudson River School. Berg draws from this legacy while bringing her work into the now through her monochrome color palettes, deeply textured canvases and autobiographical narratives. Kelly Berg was born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1986. Her family moved to Wayzata, Minnesota in 1989 where she grew up drawing and painting from an early age. As a young student, Berg was inspired by her travels to the National Parks and frequent visits to the Walker Art Center and The Minneapolis Institute of Art. Berg received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Rhode Island School of Design in 2008. As a Los Angeles-based artist since 2009, Berg has enjoyed two solo exhibitions at Frank Pictures Gallery in Bergamot Station, Santa Monica. Bergs’s work was recently featured in two museum exhibitions “Art for Art's Sake: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation” at The Barrick Museum (Las Vegas, NV), and “California Art: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation” at the Carnegie Art Museum (Oxnard, CA). Berg was one of eight Los Angeles artists selected by the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825 to participate in the Simply Perfect Art Project, an artist residency at the iconic Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood in 2011. Berg is published in Whitehot Magazine, OC Weekly, and featured in the Figure/Ground Artist interview series and the arts issue of the Venice Argonaut Newspaper. Berg is collected by the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation and is in numerous private collections. November 22, 2014 - January 11, 2015 Back to list

Up Made in America Various Artists NASA Flight Research: Probing the Sky MOAH Collection 30th Anniversary: Recent Acquisitions Exhibition Astronaut Karen Nyberg's Star Quilt The New Vanguard : Scott Listfield Gerald Clarke The New Vanguard : Group Exhibition Curated by Thinkspace Albrigo Examines Pettibon and Baseball Jae Young Kim: Blah, Blah, Blah The Wired Presidents The New Vanguard Murals: Bumblebeelovesyou and MEGGS The New Vanguard : Alex Yanes Installation NASA Flight Research: Probing the Sky In late 1946, 13 engineers from the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Virginia arrived at Edwards Air Force Base to establish what is now known as NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, participating in the first supersonic research flights by the Bell X-1 rocket plane. Just a year later, on October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager flew his Bell X-1 over Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards, reaching an altitude of 40,000 feet and exceeding speeds of 662 mph, breaking the sound barrier for the first time in aviation history. Today, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center is the primary hub of atmospheric flight research and operations in the United States, housing some of the most advanced aircraft in the world. Critical in carrying out missions of space exploration and aeronautical research and development, the Center continues to accelerate advances and make important discoveries in the fields of science, technology, operations and testing. The Center also houses a fleet of manned and un-manned environmental science aircraft which support new developments in the fields of Astrophysics and Earth Science, fulfilling NASA’s goals of enhancing education, knowledge, innovation, economic vitality and stewardship of the Earth. Probing the Sky features over 50 pieces borrowed from the Flight Research Center’s collection, detailing the illustrious history of aviation innovation in Southern California. Featured works include “The Apollo Story” by the late aerospace artist Dr. Robert T. McCall, Robert Schaar’s painted portraits of the NACA/NASA pilots inducted into the Aerospace Walk of Honor on The BLVD and various paintings, drawings and sculptures by artists known for their work in and about the aerospace industry. Dr. Robert T. McCall’s “The Apollo Story” is a suite of five original cold stone lithographs depicting the legacy of the Apollo moon-landing program. Cold stone lithography is a printing process in which artists use greasy drawing materials to make original images on limestone, which is then chemically etched. Exhibiting artist Robert Schaar is a highly regarded portrait painter who is one of an elite group of artists comprising the NASA Art Program; his work was included in NASA’s Visions of Flight program, viewed in museums worldwide. Schaar’s “Walk of Honor” portraits feature test pilots whose aviation careers were marked by significant achievements beyond one accomplishment. Shown together, these works comprise a vivid retelling of some of the most significant figures and achievements in aeronautics. MOAH Collection: Recent Acquisitions As an institution, MOAH is dedicated to strengthening awareness, enhancing accessibility and igniting the appreciation of art, history and culture through an ever-growing collection of both artifacts and art. One of a museum’s primary functions is stewardship—the responsible planning and management of resources. At MOAH, this objective is implemented is through a focus on preserving Southern California’s unique history via the Museum’s extensive collection. As such, the art in this retrospective includes contributions by both local and internationally known artists, featuring pieces that represent our region both literally, with the inclusion of early California landscapes, and conceptually, with a nod to community involvement in the aerospace industry and artists’ use of new materials, resin and plastics. Beginning in 2012, the Museum developed its Juried Collection, which features the work of local artists who took top awards at MOAH’s annual All-Media Juried Exhibition. Through its dynamic collection, MOAH celebrates the richness of the region and the unique qualities that encompass the Antelope Valley. Karen Nyberg: Star Quilt When astronaut Karen Nyberg launched for her mission aboard the International Space Station, she brought with her some unusual items, including: a spool of ivory thread, five needles, and three “fat quarters” of fabric. During the five month stint that she spent living aboard the Space Station as a flight engineer, Nyberg became the first person to quilt while in orbit. As one might imagine, the astronaut and artist ran into some unique difficulties while striving to complete her zero-gravity project, including figuring out how to best store her sewing supplies (Velcro and Ziploc bags kept needles and strips of fabric from floating away) and how to cut floating fabric. Of the latter, Nyberg states, “Imagine if you take a piece of fabric and hold it out in front of you. Now, take your scissors and try to cut it and that is exactly what it is like. Because you can’t lie it down on the floor, and you can’t use a rotary cutter, you just have to cut.” Despite these difficulties, Nyberg successfully completed a nine-by-nine inch, red, white and blue quilt square. Upon returning to Earth, Nyberg expanded upon her “Astronomical Quilt,” calling for quilters from all over the world to submit star themed fabric blocks to be included in the final product. Nyberg received over 2,200 submissions, which were sewn together to create 28 quilt panels, with the original star at the center. “With a project like this, what I think is really cool, is that you can take somebody from every part of this world and find something that you have in common with them. And we really do have something in common with people from everywhere,” Nyberg said. Born in Vining, Minnesota, Karen Nyberg graduated summa cum laude from the University of North Dakota where she received a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. She then earned a Doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin, for her work researching human thermoregulation and metabolic testing at the Austin Bioheat Transfer Laboratory, with special focus on thermo neutrality in space suits. Nyberg is currently an American mechanical engineer and NASA astronaut. Scott Listfield: Once an Astronaut Scott Listfield is a contemporary artist known for his paintings featuring a lone exploratory astronaut lost in a landscape cluttered with pop culture icons, corporate logos and tongue-in-cheek science fiction references. Inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, a vision of the future which never quite came to pass, Listfield combines images of modern day landscapes with his signature astronaut, fully clad in space garb. Having grown up with the space-age perception of the future depicted in popular media, Listfield finds our present to be strange and unusual, worth exploring in its own right. He approaches modern existence in a way that makes it seem estranged and alien, allowing audiences the rare chance to interpret the contemporary society we live in from an outsider’s viewpoint. Scott Listfield was born in Boston and studied art at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. In 2000, after some time spent abroad, Scott returned to America where, he began painting astronauts and, sometimes, dinosaurs. Listfield has been profiled in Wired Magazine, Juxtapoz, the Boston Globe, New American Paintings and on WBZ-TV Boston. He has exhibited his work in Los Angeles, Chicago, London, New York, San Francisco, Miami and Boston. Gerald Clarke: Manifest Destiny Gerald Clarke is a Native American artist from Southern California whose artwork focuses on drawing attention to the contemporary existence of indigenous peoples. With views of Native American culture being driven by popular stereotypes, Clarke aims to give back the essence of humanity to these groups. He searches for unconventional beauty in the world, often found through exploring his reality as a contemporary Native man. Clarke’s craftsmanship conveys pride, respect and authority, both celebrating and mourning what is revealed in his search for newfound appreciation of the world. The artist seeks to teach through his work, attempting to express the passion, pain and reverence of contemporary Native life, invoking a greater understanding of these marginalized groups through an emotional response from his audience. A self-proclaimed “kitchen-sink” artist, Clarke has no definitive visual genre, utilizing whichever format, tools or techniques most effectively express his desired message. He often explores aspects of installation, mixed media, video and performance, while incorporating Native American craft techniques such as traditional basket-weaving. Gerald Clarke is a member of the Cahuilla Band of Indians located about 40 miles southwest of Palm Springs, California. He is an artist, educator, cattle rancher and small business owner, taking an active role in preserving Native languages and culture. Clarke teaches sculpture and new media at Idyllwild Arts Academy, where he is the Visual Arts Department Chair, and will begin teaching Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside. In the past, he has served as an Assistant Professor of Art at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma. In addition to teaching, Clarke has been part of a variety of exhibitions featured both nationally and abroad. In 2007, he was awarded the Eiteljorg Museum Fellowship for Native American Fine Art. Clarke resides in Anza, California, tending to his family’s ranch on the Native reservation where he served as Vice-Chairman on the Tribal Council from 2006-2012. Learn More The New Vanguard The Lancaster Museum of Art and History, in collaboration with Los Angeles' Thinkspace Gallery, is pleased to present The New Vanguard, featuring works by over 55 artists from the New Contemporary Movement. The exhibition will present one of the largest cross-sections of artists working within the movement's diverse vernaculars, ever shown within a museological context in California to date. An ambitious compilation, The New Vanguard will bring together some of the most relevant and dynamic artists currently practicing from all over the world. The exhibition, opening August 13, will take place in tandem with this year's installment of POW! WOW! Antelope Valley. The exhibition will feature site-specific murals and installations within the museum by Alex Yanes, Bumblebeelovesyou, Meggs, and Yoskay Yamamoto, a solo presentation of works by Scott Listfield in the Vault Gallery, and a diverse group exhibition of works in the South Gallery, including pieces by Aaron Li-Hill, Adam Caldwell, Alex Garant, Amandalynn, Amy Sol, Brett Amory, Brian Viveros, C215, Carl Cashman, Casey Weldon, Chie Yoshii, Cinta Vidal, Craig ‘Skibs’ Barker, Cryptik, Dan Lydersen, Dan-ah Kim, Derek Gores, Dulk, Erik Siador, Felipe Pantone, Fernando Chamarelli, Glennray Tutor, Henrik Aa. Uldalen, Icy and Sot, Jacub Gagnon, Jaime Molina, James Bullough, James Reka, Jana & JS, Jean Labourdette (aka Turf One), Jeremy Hush, Joel Daniel Phillips, Josie Morway, Juan Travieso, Kyle Stewart, Linnea Strid, Lisa Ericson, Low Bros, Lunar New Year, Mando Marie, Marco Mazzoni, Mark Dean Veca, Mark Warren Jacques, Martin Whatson, Mary Iverson, Matt Linares, Matthew Grabelsky, Meggs, Mike Egan, Nosego, Pam Glew, Ricky Lee Gordon, Scott Radke, Sean Norvet, Tony Philipppou, Wiley Wallace, X-O, and Yosuke Ueno. The POW! WOW! Antelope Valley project will include public works by Amandalynn, Andrew Schoultz, Bumblebeelovesyou, David Flores, Julius Eastman, Kris Holladay, Mando Marie, Mark Dean Veca, Meggs, Michael Jones and Yoskay Yamamoto. All the works will be centered around the area of the museum, with David Flores actually adorning the backside of the museum with a massive new mural. Historically, the New Contemporary movement has largely been relegated to spaces outside of art institutions and other arbiters of the "high," whether it be urban spaces or subcultural haunts. The movement, having had to create contexts for the reception of its work and support of its community, has never had the fixity of a singular genre - or its limitations for that matter - but rather has prospered under a fluidity, expanding into all manner of techniques, expressions, media, and spaces. This exhibition is significant in that it marks a period of transition in the vetted visibility of this movement and its artists, as it has become increasingly celebrated and acknowledged, not only within the context of popular culture but the institutional framework of museum spaces. No single art movement in recent memory has grown as exponentially in acceptance, visibility, and popularity in as relatively short a period, a phenomenon that attests to the power and sway of its cultural presence. Perhaps most unified by its lack of stylistic exclusion, the New Contemporary movement, long helmed by its simultaneous embrace of multiple elements, incorporates narrative, the surreal, the gestural, the abstract, the figurative, and the illustrative. With no single defining formal or conceptual armature, the work produced by this new generation of artist is responsive, reactive, emotive, and grounded in the social. The New Vanguard highlights the imaginative breadth of these New Contemporary artists, showcasing the limitless potential of an art movement that began without walls and has now infiltrated galleries and museums the world over. Daniel Albrigo: Albrigo Examines Pettibon and Baseball Daniel Albrigo is a Southern California based artist, drawing influence from aspects of modern American culture. Albrigo predominately works with the medium of painting, but also includes photography, drawing and various printing methods in his work practice. Mostly self-taught, he explores classical and contemporary themes of realism, touching on American culture both appropriated and observed. Instead of the more traditional use of photography as reference for his paintings, he began taking portraits of artists in their studio spaces as part of an ongoing project of new American imagery. Beginning in April 2015, Albrigo focused on artist Raymond Pettibon, photographing him in his New York City studio. Over the course of a few visits, Albrigo captured Pettibon with various pieces of sporting equipment and was guided through the vast collection of sports memorabilia he had, filling up almost every corner of his studio. In this series of photos, the audience will be privy to the raw passion for the great American sport of baseball in the working space of an iconic American artist. Baseball with Pettibon is the beginning of an ongoing series of Raymond Pettibon and his collection of diverse equipment, highlighting sports through revealing its longstanding influence on American culture. Daniel Albrigo was born in Pomona, California in 1982. Albrigo has had solo exhibitions at the Guerrero Gallery in San Francisco, Muddguts Gallery in New York City, and a split show at Western Exhibitions in Chicago with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. The collaborative work he created with P-Orridge has been shown at Utah Museum of Contemporary Art in Salt Lake City, The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and The Rubin Museum of Art in New York City. Albrigo currently resides and works in Long Beach, California. Jae Yong Kim: Blah Blah Blah Jae Yong Kim is a Korean native who has spent the majority of his life traveling, observing and developing the themes of his art. His work greatly reflects the turmoil of a highly mobile existence, with the question of “home” appearing as a recurring theme as he explores what this concept means to him. On the subject of his art, Kim states, “We live in an incredibly fast paced culture that encourages and requires people to have confidence and strength, and there is seldom any room for failure and doubt, even though these are essential elements in life and absolutely necessary for growth.” Kim primarily works with ceramics and installation, displaying a consistent, quirky and eccentric style that accurately reflects the artist’s own personality, making his work truly recognizable. Donuts first appeared in Kim’s work as a symbol of greed and gluttony, representative of his somewhat negative experiences while endeavoring to understand the financial world of New York City. “The donuts I see as a possibility of working out problem situations in my life and addressing how money is handled and treated in America,” said Kim. Rather than focusing on how to make money and learning a business-based jargon that the artist didn’t particularly care to understand, Kim decided to instead create his own language to say what he thought was important. “I started making more donuts because this is what made me happy,” said Kim. “Donuts are a treat but they aren’t all good,” he said, “Donuts, sweets and junk food are typical fare for those living in poverty or just above it. Cheap and yummy, donuts also give a quick burst of energy which lets you keep going. They can also provide a satisfying balm when life and trying to get by is difficult.” Created from clay fired with three different types of glaze, these sculptures come in several shapes and finishes, representing the varieties of the actual treat as well as the artist’s interest in paying homage to the works of relevant art-historical figures such as Yayoi Kusama and Jackson Pollock. A self-proclaimed perfectionist, Kim has stated that each donut is unique and carries the mark of the artist’s hand. Jae Yong Kim spent a significant portion of his early childhood traveling, having lived in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia before moving back to South Korea. After high school, he moved to the United States by himself in order to pursue a Bachelor of Arts degree in Fine Arts from the University of Hartford. From there, he went on to earn a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts for Ceramics from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. Kim has participated in both group and solo exhibitions and shown internationally in settings such as the Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art in Japan, the Korean Craft Promotion Foundation Gallery in Seoul, the Art and Industry Gallery in San Diego, the Lyons Wier Gallery, Marshall M. Frederick’s Sculpture Museum, The Dennos Museum Center, Hunterdon Art Museum, Kate Shin Gallery at Waterfall Mansion and Philadelphia Art Alliance, as well as numerous group exhibitions worldwide. Kim lives and works in both Seoul, South Korea and the New York City area; he is currently a professor at Seoul National University of Science and Technology. The Wired Presidents The artists that have produced this work are an unnamed collective of local creators that seek to promote inquiry-based interactions in art. These questions are explored in the collection of works from this group of artists, who come from diverse backgrounds and specialties. Their experiences range from blockbuster films to special effects, props, puppetry, video games, toys and technology. What does the effect of technology have on the electoral process or the office of the presidency? How does information and technology craft our narrative of what constitutes a perfect candidate? Why is it that Abraham Lincoln is considered one of America’s favorite leaders? What qualities did he have that warranted that categorization? How did the technology of Lincoln’s time impact the public conversation? Do we design our own ideal leader within an information-based society? How does that affect our expectations? Bumblebeelovesyou Born and raised in southeastern Los Angeles County, Bumblebee takes the largely ignored parts of the city and uses it as his personal canvas by remodeling urban furniture, such as newspaper boxes and telephone booths, to tell stories of everyday life and comment on the collapse of the bee population through the rise of cell phone usage. He also utilizes the technique of stenciling and mixed media to create images of children on the unloved, deserted walls of his hometown in Downey. Considerate and thoughtful, Bumblebee’s work also deals with issues such as child homelessness and the impact modernity has on nature. Despite the seriousness of his subject matter, his works are not heavy for the viewer. Instead, they are whimsical, playful and exude a sense of childish innocence, freedom and joy. Bumblebee has participated in numerous group exhibitions at various institutions, including: Carmichael Gallery, Thinkspace Gallery, Barnsdall Art Park, Street A.K.A. Museum in conjunction with the Portsmouth Museum of Art, and Outside/In, a partnership with the Art Center College of Design. His art has been covered by numerous media outlets including LA Weekly, TedX Illinois, Complex Magazine, Unurth, Arrested Motion, and Downey Beat. In 2015, he was awarded the Readers’ Choice award for Best Street Artist in LA Weekly MEGGS David “MEGGS” Hooke is one of Australia’s most progressive street and fine artists recognized for his unique, expressive and energetic style with references to pop culture, the natural world and socio-cultural issues. His technical use of color and movement combines clean, bold, illustrative elements with intuitive, textural and free flowing design. By constantly searching for the harmony between form, abstraction, order and chaos, MEGGS pours his all-or-nothing personality into every inch of his work. His life manifesto is that the “journey is the reward” and his work reflects this eternal search for balance. MEGGS’ emphasis on constant growth and passion for travel is demonstrated by his continual exploration of artistic techniques and mediums. Adapting his street art and graffiti to fine art has granted MEGGS extensive opportunities to travel, professionally exhibit his work and participate in mural festivals around the globe. His street art and gallery works are recognized nationally and internationally in cities such as Melbourne, Sydney, London, San Francisco, Paris, Tokyo, Hawaii, Mexico, Los Angeles and Hong Kong. MEGGS’ art works are included in the permanent paper collections of the National Gallery of Australia and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) of London. MEGGS has traveled and contributed his art to support the ambitions of numerous not-for-profit organizations, including Fareshare, Pangeaseed, and POW! WOW! HAWAII. His cooperative practices have led to collaborations with various artists and brands from cultures worldwide. His commercial work with companies such as Nike, Stussy, Addict, New Balance, Burton and Endeavor Snowboards has contributed to the constant evolution of his talent and furthering his range of designs and ideas. MEGGS was born and raised in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia and completed his Bachelor’s degree in Design from Swinburne University School of Design in 2000. He is a founding member of the Everfresh crew, a unique collective of street art pioneers who opened the world renowned Everfresh Studio in 2004. MEGGS’ adoration of comic book art, sci-fi fantasy, skateboarding, graffiti culture, heavy metal and punk rock music are at the core of what inspired him to pursue his career in fine art. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Alex Yanes Alex Yanes is a Miami artist drawing influence from his family’s Cuban roots through his exploration of local Miami culture. It was there that he was exposed to the gritty, fast-paced and ever-evolving nature of art. Much of his work closely relates to his exposure to the skateboard, tattoo, hip-hop and rock culture present in Miami during the 1980s and ‘90s, creating his own form of reality through combinations of materials like wood, acrylic, resin and enamel in three-dimensional installation pieces that seek to reveal elements of Yanes’ own personal history and the impacts of fast-paced city life. In this sense, his art serves as an autobiography, directly associated with Yanes’ individual experiences through his lifetime. Through the innovative use of color and his whimsical and imaginative style, Yanes’ art takes on a form that is widely relatable, speaking volumes to both collectors and new art lovers alike. Alex Yanes was born and raised in Miami, Florida. He has been interested in art since childhood, having won his first award at the age of six. Yanes began pursuing art full-time in 2006. Since then, he has worked with Adidas, Red Bull, Sony, The Learning Channel, Vans, Kidrobot, Neiman Marcus, St. Jude’s Hospital, The Dan Morino Foundation, Miami Children’s Museum, NBA Cares and The Children’s Trust, spreading his art to as many corners of the world as possible. Yanes’ work is now a staple in Wynwood, Miami’s art district, and he awaits upcoming exhibitions to showcase his art worldwide in locations such as New York, Illinois, California, Germany, The United Kingdom, Australia and Brazil. August 13 - October 30, 2016 Back to list

Artist in Residence Up Gouache Plein Air Paintings Chloe Allred This art workshop will cover plein air painting techniques in gouache. Plein air painting is the act of painting outside from direct observation of the landscape. There is something magical that happens when you sit in one place for a time, observe, and paint that place. The cotton tail rabbits stop noticing you and come out to explore. Lizards come out to sun themselves in the open. Crows carry on with their clicking conversations. For this workshop Chloe Allred will demonstrate a variety of painting techniques in gouache and participants will discover beautiful areas in the preserve to make paintings from. March 27 - July 6, 2024 Back to list

< Back Serena JV Elston Ancient Futurism Artist Serena JV Elston is a transdisciplinary sculptor contemplating the body and its relationship to structures of power like patriarchy, capitalism, and gender. Her research-based practice explores ecology, posthumanism, disability, and embodiment through a post-colonial lens — a historical period or state of affairs representing the aftermath of Western colonialism. Elston critiques the institutional preservation of Western civilization. At its core, her practice asks if an institution has the power to disable a body, does the body have the power to disable an institution? Grappling with the identity of disability, she depicts figures in various stages of decomposition and incompleteness. Elston’s work seeks to make visible the precarious materiality of structures to reveal them as inherently temporal. Institutions are not independent from the mortal bodies that serve them. In this way individual acts of maintenance of structures of power become political. ‘Disability’, rather than ‘wellbeing’, is deemed as a colonial determination of labor potential and worth. This idea is designed to diminish our humanity in institutional settings. Elston’s art reflects on the fragility of the bodies we inhabit and rely upon. Previous Next

Up The Forest for the Trees Various Artists Artists: Sant Khalsa, Constance Mallinson, Greg Rose, Timothy Robert Smith, High & Dry, Robert Dunahay Forest for the Trees is comprised of five exhibitions addressing the complex relationships between people and the living and built environments they inhabit, specifically focusing on humans’ symbiotic connection to trees. Featured in the Main Gallery at MOAH is a survey of work documented over the course of eight years by artist Greg Rose. Featured in the South Gallery is 40 plus years of work by Sant Khalsa. With solo exhibition by Constance Mallinson, site specific installations by artists Timothy R. Smith and High & Dry, a collaboration between Osceola Refetoff and Christopher Langley. Each of the artists explore the environment and the impacts, both positive and negative, that humans have upon it. Greg Rose’s work documents his, nearly decade long, excursions into the San Gabriel Mountains as he catalogs, analyzes, and paints various trees across the forest. Sant Khalsa’s, Prana, brings together work from her more than forty years as an artist, examining humanity’s existence within nature, specifically their connection to trees. Constance Mallinson’s work takes a closer look at the massive amounts of material waste that humans generate, magnifying the remains of landfills and garbage “patches” by painting them on oversized canvases. Timothy R. Smith is constructing a site specific installation regarding the built environment that will span two stories and multiple exhibition spaces. High & Dry’s dispatches takes a look at humans and their impact on the environment, specifically concerning the Mojave Desert region and what we leave behind as a culture. Joining Forest for the Trees at MOAH:CEDAR on Saturday, June 16 from 6 to 8 p.m. is artist Miya Ando. Inspired by her upbringing, Ando’s installation will transport visitors to the redwood forests of northern California. High & Dry LAND ARTIFACTS High & Dry comprises a long-term exploration of the California desert and the people who live there. Balancing images and words with the personal and historical, the cross-platform collaboration between photographer Osceola Refetoff and writer/historian Christopher Langley focuses on the remnants and future of human activity across these vast open spaces, territory that has traditionally been used for resource extraction, toxic dumping and military exercises, and currently faces a future dominated by immense wind and solar arrays. The exhibit Land Artifacts examines the things we leave behind and what they reveal about ourselves, our past and our future. Nowhere are these instructive legacies and endowments more exposed than in the barren California desert. Whether from ruins, artifacts, memorials and/or waste, there is much we can learn about lives, attitudes and the things that we value. It has been said that we borrow our land from our grandchildren. What legacy do you want to leave? Osceola Refetoff’s interest is in documenting humanity’s impact on the world – both the intersection of nature and industry, and the narratives of the people living at those crossroads. The landscape photographs in Land Artifacts are infrared exposures, which accentuate the raw intensity of vast arid spaces and the graphic relationship between land and sky. Though Refetoff does not work exclusively in black and white, what links the diverse forms of his practice is his commitment to render not only what a place looks like, but also how it feels to be there. To that end, his black and white infrared photographs tap into classic historical and visual tropes from the medium’s earliest days, confronting evolving questions of truth, beauty, dispassion, reportage and artistry that have always been a part of how photography functions in our culture. Christopher Langley, a life-long educator, has lived in and studied the Mojave Desert for more than forty-five years. Working as a film historian, founder of the Museum of Western Film History in Lone Pine and Inyo County Film Commissioner, he focuses on the desert’s complex relationship with cinema, and how land plays an essential role in the story of our lives. Co-founder of the Alabama Hills Stewardship Group, Langley’s environmental advocacy has won the National Conservation Cooperation Award. His writing is widely syndicated and includes three books on California’s arid landscape. High & Dry is a regular feature on KCET’s Emmy-winning program Artbound. Greg Rose Tree Fiction Greg Rose has been documenting individual trees and the changes they undergo for the past eight years. It began while taking regular hiking trips through the San Gabriel Mountains. He started noticing the trees of this region were made rugged from enduring extreme weather conditions. Over time, he began regarding the trees by their individual characteristics and started to document them. First he maps, illustrates and photographs the trees, then he paints them. In his series, Tree Fiction , Greg Rose presents detailed gouache renderings of trees which he has isolated in a plane of vibrant gradients. His work takes on the quality of a narrative, mirroring both the tension and sense of connection one may find in their own life such as within families and other relationships. The titles of each painting suggests a variety of complicated exchanges between the trees like characters in a play. Greg Rose is most interested in the concept of change and how much change trees undergo throughout their lifetime, particularly in regard to wildfires. Greg Rose is a Los Angeles based artist with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drawing and painting from California State University, Long Beach, California and a Master of Fine Arts degree in drawing and painting from Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California. Greg Rose has been exhibited in both group and solo shows in California, New York, Texas, Missouri and Columbia and has been featured in a number of publications including Artillery magazine, The Huffington Post, Artweek, Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle and more. Sant Khalsa Prana: Life with Trees Sant Khalsa is an artist and activist whose projects develop from her impassioned inquiry into the nature of place and complex environmental and societal issues. Her artworks create a contemplative space where one can sense the subtle and profound connections between themselves and the natural world. The subject of trees has been a focus in Sant Khalsa’s creative work for nearly five decades. Prana: Life with Trees is the first in depth survey of Khalsa’s intimate connection with trees – her explorations, observations, perceptions and interpretations. Her unique perspective is expressed through a style that encompasses the documentary, subjective and conceptual. Her work evokes a meditative calm to what we often experience as a chaotic and conflicted world. Khalsa is concerned with both the micro and macro aspects of forests: what is seen and unseen; historical, scientific and spiritual; and personal and universal. She is mindful of our symbiotic relationship with trees and forests, grounded in the life-sustaining connection through the breath (exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen). Her beautiful, distinctive and sometime disquieting works express the cycle of life (birth, life, death and rebirth), the destruction and memory of the forest, as well as the promise of new growth. The exhibition includes her earliest landscapes (self-portraits and photographs of orange groves); images of trees from her three decades photographing in the Santa Ana Watershed and other locations in the American West; and mixed-media sculptures and installation works inspired by her research on air quality and life-changing experience planting more than a thousand trees in 1992 as part of the reforestation of Holcomb Valley in the San Bernardino Mountains. In her recent color photographs, we witness the fruits of her activism, a healthy, thriving and hopeful forest eco-system. Sant Khalsa’s artworks are widely exhibited internationally, collected by prestigious museums including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Nevada Museum of Art and Center for Creative Photography in Tucson and published in numerous art books and periodicals. Khalsa is a recipient of prestigious fellowships, awards and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, California Council for the Humanities and others. She is a Professor of Art, Emerita at California State University, San Bernardino and resides in Joshua Tree. Constance Mallinson ME, ME, ME Constance Mallinson depicts monumental assortments of post-consumer items that are reminiscent of trash dumps, ocean gyres and urban alleyways. Her art unveils the complexities and moral dilemmas of living in a technological, consumerist, disposable world as humans simultaneously contribute to its demise. Evoking the past, present and future, the content of her work examines the complexities and moral dilemmas that come with living in an imprudent consumerist culture. Post-apocalyptic, darkly humorous, critical and celebratory at once, Mallinson’s images of degraded commodities situate the viewer in a provocative endgame. Mallinson’s art features paintings composed from both natural and manufactured waste that the artist has collected from the streets on her daily walks through her neighborhood. The discarded contents found on city streets are not often associated with the sublime, but in Constance Mallinson’s paintings, they are rendered at a disturbing scale. Decaying plant materials and a fantastical assortment of post-consumer items are deftly interwoven. The rich details, dazzling color, variety of objects and interplay of forms nod towards 17th century Dutch still life painting as well as Cubist collage. Mallinson renders kitsch advertising images in an Old Masters technique with an underlying desire to push for a newer paradigm that reflects globalism and awareness to the threatening of the world’s ecosystems by population, industry and pollution. In their scale and execution her art pieces have been appreciated for their ability to simultaneously seduce and deliver a critique and to share a continuing relevance for painting in an era of ubiquitous mass media. Constance Mallinson received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Georgia and has exhibited her work throughout California. In addition to her recent commission for the EXPO Line MTA Bergamot Station permanent artwork installation, she has designed a poster for the MTA Red Line, been a finalist for a mural for the California Supreme Court in San Francisco and numerous libraries in Southern California. Mallinson has taught at many universities and colleges in Southern California including University of California, Los Angeles and Claremont Graduate School. She was the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship as well as the City of Los Angeles’ Artist Grant. Many of Constance Mallison’s paintings can also be viewed in major private and public art collections including LACMA and the San Jose Museum. Timothy Robert Smith Revised Maps of the Present Timothy Robert Smith is a Los Angeles based oil painter and muralist interested in multi-dimensionalism, which he describes as an attempt to understand how one’s personal experience in the world fits into the greater picture of the universe. Smith’s work does not replicate reality as we perceive it, but rather asks the viewer to consider the realities they do not see, questioning the realness of their perspective both visually and metaphysically. Revised Maps of the Present is a multi-room interactive installation that combines painted walls, sculpted figures, lights, sound and video projections. The installation begins with the scene of a train station in a city. As the observer moves through the installation, layers of reality disconnect and unfold into a labyrinth of warped angles, hidden spatial dimensions and alternative versions of the present. The installation aims to simulate a present moment as if one were to view it from all perspectives at once. The installation as seen here at MOAH is the first incarnation of this exhibit. With each new installment hereafter, Revised Maps of the Present will reconfigure and expand with added rooms and features. Timothy Robert Smith invites the viewer to reexamine the world without their familiar mental filter and to see again as a child sees: enormous, mysterious and full of possibilities. Timothy Robert Smith received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in studio art from California State University Los Angeles and a Masters of Fine Arts degree for studio art from Laguna College of Art and Design. He also teaches at Laguna College of Art and Design, California State University Long Beach, California State University Los Angeles and Saddleback College. Timothy Robert Smith has also been featured in various media outlets including Juxtapoz Magazine and NBC News and his paintings have shown in solo exhibitions at TEDx Conferences and Copro Gallery in Santa Monica, California. Robert Dunahay He Man Distinguished patrons worldwide collect Robert Dunahay’s art including the Royal Family Al Thani of Qatar, Baroness Monica Von Neumann of Switzerland and celebrities Pierce Brosnan, Kelsey Grammer and Linda Hamilton. His work is part of the corporate collections for Pepperdine University, The Financial Times, The Packard Foundation and the W Hotel. Dunahay is most known for his Palm Series of paintings depicting grand-scale palm trees in vibrant colors. By depicting his subject in face-to-face portraiture style on a solid background, he replaces traditional references to landscape with the transcendentalism of iconography. American artist Robert Charles Dunahay currently lives and works in Palm Springs, California. May 12 - July 15, 2018 Back to list

< Back Terry Arena Natural Capital Once considered a “ghost lake” in California, the torrential downpour of rain experienced in 2023 has resurrected bodies of water like Tulare Lake. It was considered one of the largest freshwater bodies west of the Mississippi before it would be depleted of its water in the 19th century through the creation of canals, dams, and ditches that would divert water from the region for agriculture. Lucrative crops like pistachios are planted on thousands of acres of the lakebed. The land that provides three quarters of our country’s fruits and nuts and one-third of our vegetables has been quietly overtaken by nature multiple times in the last hundred years. At the crux of artist Terry Arena’s work is her environmental curiosity and the robust food economy of California’s Central Valley. Fundamental to her art inquiry is the notion of collapse and rebirth as seen in phenomena like the disappearance and resurgence of Lake Tulare. Her latest body of work, Natural Capital , explores society’s race toward the eventual depletion of our environmental resources. She investigates how humanity commodifies the natural world through its water, land, and aquifers. UPCOMING COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: Weaving: Stories of our Past, Present, and Future with Terry Arena Saturday, July 20 at 3 PM | Located at the Lancaster Museum of Art and History Join us for a creative workshop where we explore the timeless art of weaving. Participants will create woven self-portraits using a variety of materials, reflecting their past, present, or future! Bring any meaningful paper (photos, recipes, etc.) to incorporate into your piece. Previous Next

Up Made in the Mojave Various Artists Artists Samantha Fields Kim Stringfellow Carol Es Catherine Ruane Marthe Aponte Nicolas Shake Ron Pinkerton Aline Mare Randi Hokett Made in the Mojave celebrates the subtle beauty, rich history, and plentiful resources of the Mojave Desert. The exhibit which focuses on the landscape interpreted through a variety of media, from painting, to photography, to social practice, is sure to awaken within visitors a new-found appreciation for the nuanced splendor of the desert. Featured solo exhibits include artists Samantha Fields, Kim Stringfellow, Carol Es, Catherine Ruane, Aline Mare, Ron Pinkerton, Nicolas Shake, Randi Hokett and a site specific installation by local artist Marthe Aponte. Made in the Mojave expands our idea of the desert and its relevance in our daily lives. In addition to the professional artist presentations, the Museum is honored to highlight R. Rex Parris High School students’ project, Wasteland, on the rooftop terrace. As part of MOAH’s Green Initiative, this project was led by Los Angeles artist Nicolas Shake working in conjunction with R. Rex Parris High School art instructor Kris Holladay and her students. Samantha Fields: Ten Years While it is true that Samantha Fields spends a great deal of time contemplating how things fall apart, whether it be by fire, drought, tornado, typhoon, flood or simple human error, to say that Fields is obsessed with disasters would be reductive. There is a central and indefatigable impulse toward beauty and hope that underlies the artist’s process, which is as central to her final image as water is to a river. Fields’ images are drawn from our collective human consciousness. They are recollections of events that have passed or are still raging on as in the epic fires that regularly engulf the Los Angeles landscape, which the artist has drawn to create a series of startlingly realistic images of fire plumes, simultaneously delicate and hard edged. Fields creates these paintings in a kind of vacuum, her hand never really touching the canvas as she applies acrylic paint through an air brush, only occasionally adding a more surreal gesture by hand. Fields’ images are just as much metaphors for the state of the world as they are landscape paintings. The landscape, for Fields, is simply the best and most luminous vehicle to express these ideas. These images, drawn from disaster, highlight the viewer’s gaze into the abyss, searching for a sense of self in the chaos and beginning to understand the complexity of our human experience. Samantha Fields is a painter based in Los Angeles, California. She received a Sabbatical Award from California State University, Northridge in 2015, an individual artist grant from the City of Los Angeles (COLA) in 2012, and was awarded the College Art Association’s professional development fellowship in 1997. Kim Stringfellow: The Mojave Project The Mojave Project is a transmedia documentary and curatorial project led by Kim Stringfellow exploring the physical, geological and cultural landscape of the Mojave Desert. The Mojave Project reconsiders and establishes multiple ways in which to interpret this unique and complex landscape, through association and connection of seemingly unrelated sites, themes and subjects thus creating a speculative and immersive experience for its audience. The Mojave Project explores the following themes: Desert as Wasteland; Geological Time vs. Human Time; Sacrifice and Exploitation; Danger and Consequence; Space and Perception; Mobility and Movement; Desert as Staging Ground; Transformation and Reinvention. The Mojave Project materialized over time through deep research and direct field inquiry involving interviews, reportage and personal journaling supported with still photography, audio and video documentation. Field Dispatches were shared throughout the production period at mojaveproject.org and through KCET Artbound. This initial phase of the project was designed to make ongoing research transparent, inviting the audience into the conversation as the project developed. The Mojave Project culminates as a large-scale video installation incorporating the digital research journal, photographs, documents and maps along with other collected ephemera and objects gathered over the three-year production period. Launched at MOAH, the completed project, exhibition and corresponding publications will travel to multiple institutions over a two-year period. Funding for The Mojave Project is provided through a Cal Humanities 2015 California Documentary Project production grant with additional support from San Diego State University. The Mojave Project is a project of the Pasadena Arts Council’s EMERGE Program. The Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Association and KCET Artbound are project partners. Kim Stringfellow is an artist, educator and independent curator based in Joshua Tree, California. She is a 2016 Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Curatorial Fellow and a 2015 Guggenheim Fellow in Photography. In 2012, she became the second recipient of the Theo Westenberger Award for Artistic Excellence. Other awards include a Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI) “Investing in Artists” equipment grant in 2010. Carol Es: The Exodus Project Over the past 15 years, Carol Es has made several pilgrimages to Joshua Tree National Park. During one of these visits, a 10-day extended stay in a secluded spot of the park, The Exodus Project was born. As Es studied Jewish mysticism, meditated and explored her desert surroundings, she carefully documented the process, sketching, filming and blogging about her experience in an effort to gather as much preliminary work as she could before returning to her studio in Los Angeles, where she would work on the project for the next year. Back in her studio, one of Es’ first endeavors was a short film, produced in collaboration with visual artists and animators Jonathan Nesmith and Susan Holloway. Together they created Up to Now, a six-minute movie featuring Yuddy, a giraffe-like creature representing Es’ spiritual quest and Moppet, who resembles a ragdoll, symbolizing the artist’s inner child. It is a short story, narrated by Es, about “freeing oneself from emotional baggage.” The short is featured inside Camp Up to Now, a multi-media installation consisting of a large yellow tent that acts as a miniature theatre. The Exodus Project also encompasses a series of oil paintings on canvas and gesso boards, called the Joshua Tree Paintings, inspired by actual locations mixed with the artist’s imagination, as well as an additional series, Rock and Refuge, consisting of more abstract, collaged paintings on panels of birch. These pieces are meant to represent the unique architectural landscapes which can only be found in the high desert. Carol Es is a two-time recipient of the ARC Grant from the Durfee Foundation and the Artists’ Fellowship in New York. She has also received a Pollock-Krasner Fellowship and a Wynn Newhouse Award. Additionally, she writes, illustrates and publishes handmade books via her independent publishing company, Careless Press. She has also just completed her memoir, Shrapnel in the San Fernando Valley. Catherine Ruane: Dance Me to the Edge Visitors to the Mojave Desert often comment on how the wide vista of its windswept environment feels like being precariously close to the edge of the world. Catherine Ruane grew up on this “edge.” The Mojave Desert is a wild place full of mystery, challenges, danger and impossible wonders. The native plants are not only miraculous to behold but are a metaphor for our own survival. Ruane’s set of drawings are dedicated to the iconic, unusual and yet ubiquitous Joshua tree. Dance Me to the Edge consists of 12 round drawings, 12 inches each in diameter, providing a nod to the counting of time on the face of a clock, as well as the recognition of balance and continuity inherent in the desert’s unchanged landscape. There is also one larger drawing, depicting a Joshua tree in full bloom, which stands as a symbol for the continuum of life in ongoing generations: life begets life. Joshua trees are slow-growing and long lived, with several reaching a thousand years in age. This plant tells a story of survival, resilience and persistence. There is a symbiotic relationship between the tree and one particular, tiny moth that pollinates the Joshua flower in exchange for its food provisions and protection for its maturing eggs. Cooperation and the space of time are significant to the survival of this desert tree. Ruane chose to use basic charcoal and graphite pencil to meticulously draw the features of this prehistoric plant and its dependence on a tiny desert insect. It is as if the Joshua tree and its moth are in a dance of perfect balance, reflecting the delicate relationship between humankind and the environment itself. Catherine Ruane is a member of Southern Graphics Council International, College Arts Association, West Coast Drawing and Los Angeles Art Association. She has also completed commissions for several large businesses, including: The Walt Disney Company, Citi Bank, the Hyatt Hospitality Corporation, and the Ritz Carlton Hotel Development Company. She currently resides in San Diego, California. Marthe Aponte: Memories of a Joshua Tree Marthe Aponte is concerned with the relationship between time and looking, seeking to create pieces in which the artist and the viewer are transported into another world, where one is encouraged to savor the moment, inviting deceleration and contemplation. Her picoté technique, composed of varying sizes and textures of holes pierced through paper with the artist’s singular tool – an awl – forces viewers to slow down in order to best appreciate the intricacy of each composition, an experience that runs directly counter to the high-speed, technology fueled reality of modern existence. The subject of this work is the Joshua tree. Of her subject matter, the artist stated, “I am interested in the Joshua tree not because it is a symbol of the Mojave Desert’s flora, but instead because it gave me the opportunity to explore concepts of life, death and fate.” Thus, the artist incorporated the presence of the mythological Fates, sisters visiting from Greek mythology, who flank the tree at each side. An organism that must survive on meager resources, the Joshua tree’s austerity lends itself well to Aponte’s minimalist picoté technique. For the artist, the Joshua tree is a sacred site, existing somewhere in the liminal spaces between life and death, potentially subject to the mercy, wrath, or whim of the Greek sisters. Marthe Aponte is a self-taught artist who began her practice in the Antelope Valley five years ago. Since then, she has become a member of the Los Angeles Art Association’s Gallery 825 and has participated in numerous exhibitions throughout Los Angeles County, including Coagula Curatorial’s Sweet 16 Juried Exhibition and 2017’s stART Up Art Fair. She was also awarded the Beryl Amspoker Memorial Award for Outstanding Female Artists during MOAH’s Annual Juried Exhibition, Cedarfest. Aponte currently resides in Lancaster, California. Nicolas Shake: Wasteland The source material for Nicolas Shake’s work is derived from what others leave behind. The commercial detritus of suburban life, discarded in the desert, becomes reconfigured in complex and often surreal arrangements, only to continue their slow disintegration in the harsh climate. To create his compositions, Shake has stacked tires, constructed abstract scarecrows from cardboard boxes, upended sofas and made flimsy fences out of mops, brooms and rakes, arranging and rearranging these cast-off items in an ode both to their temporal nature and the human failure they imply as discarded remnants of the American dream. Once the compositions are complete to the artist’s satisfaction, he illuminates with the light from his vehicle. This results in large-scale otherworldly arrangements that echo themes of dreamlike possibility as much as they evoke post-apocalyptic disaster. Once completed, the structures are left to decay back into ruin—and this is part of the point. Nicolas Shake received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design in 2008 and Master of Fine Arts from Claremont Graduate University in 2011. Shake lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Ron Pinkerton: The Last Stand The source material for Nicolas Shake’s work is derived from what others leave behind. The commercial detritus of suburban life, discarded in the desert, becomes reconfigured in complex and often surreal arrangements, only to continue their slow disintegration in the harsh climate. To create his compositions, Shake has stacked tires, constructed abstract scarecrows from cardboard boxes, upended sofas and made flimsy fences out of mops, brooms and rakes, arranging and rearranging these cast-off items in an ode both to their temporal nature and the human failure they imply as discarded remnants of the American dream. Once the compositions are complete to the artist’s satisfaction, he illuminates with the light from his vehicle. This results in large-scale otherworldly arrangements that echo themes of dreamlike possibility as much as they evoke post-apocalyptic disaster. Once completed, the structures are left to decay back into ruin—and this is part of the point. Nicolas Shake received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Rhode Island School of Design in 2008 and Master of Fine Arts from Claremont Graduate University in 2011. Shake lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Aline Mare: The Angle of Repose Over the past year, Aline Mare has found herself drawn into several mysterious encounters during extended trips into the Mojave Desert. In this suite of images, the artist has immersed herself in those landscapes, open to the pull of objects and narratives embedded within the nakedness of the desert. Mare attempts to capture the spirit of the environment through its tangible elements: roots, seedpods, wispy clouds, Joshua tree flowers and other various fragments of the desert’s living systems. Each piece is an amalgam of images that are scanned, altered, painted and recombined to create a rich layering of sources. Biological and urban objects are fused with mark making, photo sources and digital media to compose a poetic language where systems of generation and communication are linked to form a new syntax. Using the machine’s illumination as an original light source, Mare utilizes digital scanning as a contemporary interpretation of the nineteenth-century photographic process of cliché verre, literally a Greek phrase meaning “glass picture.” The distinct layering of image and sensory background amplifies the direct beauty of the natural object as it interfaces with technology, creating a modern hybridization between the historic photographic process and the artist’s hand-rendered paintings. Thus, the eroded objects become talismans, charged artifacts of past habitations, bleached and fractured from the sun and loaded with a subjective energy. Each tableau is a theatre set where time becomes the actor—both giver and destroyer of life—within a space where quiet mysteries are revealed. Aline Mare is a multi-media, multi-disciplinary artist, currently concentrating on photography, video and installation. In 1991, she was awarded a New York State Residency for the Arts as well as the New Langdon Arts Grant. She participated in the Headlands Residency for the Arts in 1999 and was the Kala Artist in Residence in 2006. In 2012, Mare was awarded a Creative Capacity Grant by the City of San Francisco. In 2015, she participated in New Mexico’s Starry Nights Residency, as well as Surpass, a Sino-American China Art Tour. Randi Hokett: Crystalworks Hokett draws upon the volatility of tectonic plates and volcanoes as geological manifestations of creation as a metaphor for the formation of the personal landscape. Utilizing a variety of materials including salt and borax mined from the Mojave Desert itself, Hokett grows crystals on disrupted, broken and burned panels of wood. She uses chemistry to grow the crystals and then adds ink, paint and encaustic to create the finished panel. Blurring the lines between painting and sculpture, she explores a complex narrative of growth in a place where at one time there was only damage. Crystalworks draw heavily from science-based ideas and processes in order to address the wound or scar as the liminal space that allows for the beauty of growth, change and transcendence. Randi Hokett was born and raised in southern California. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Art History from University of California Los Angeles and her Master of Fine Arts in Art History and Museum Studies from University of Southern California. She is inspired by science, especially geology and chemistry. Recurring themes in her work include the relationships between damage/growth, isolation/connection, love/lust, birth/rebirth, light/dark and other places of intersection. Hokett’s work has been show at Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, Irvine Fine Arts Center and Lancaster Museum of Art and History. She lives and works in Los Angeles. May 13 - July 30, 2017 Back to list