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Selected Works < Back Previous Dan "Nuge" Nguyen Selected Works Dan ‘Nuge’ Nguyen’s artistic practice seeks to explore the relationship between structure and fluidity. Utilizing wood as his primary medium, Nuge creates works that defy the physical qualities of the material while still preserving its warmth and tactility. These vibrant sculptures are visually dense, combining color and organic forms into a single composition. Along with wood, he uses other material such as concrete, ceramics, and felted wool. Nuge’s process derives from his background in, and subsequent rebellion from, architecture. He felt that the day-to-day routines of a typical architecture firm restricted his creative process. Longing for something much more involved and intensive, he turned to creating simple wooden cutting boards and eventually full-fledged sculptures. To Nuge, his unorthodox use of wood creates a refreshing take on the medium, stripping away its traditional perception of rigidity and solidity . His works take on organic forms, highlighting wood’s inherent natural beauty. Next

< Return to Exhibitions Holiday 2012 Ann Marie Rousseau: Sight Lines sight lines jennifer-glass-cyanotypes_edited Accatino Collection 3 Kokeshi&Totem veritas300 Learn More December 6, 2012 - March 2, 2013 September 29, 2012 - January 1, 2013 Jennifer Glass: Cyanotypes December 6, 2012 - January 19, 2013 Madonna and Child: Selections from the Accatino Collection Kokeshi and the Totem: The Art of David and Kazumi Svenson Gary Baseman: The Seven Sacred Magi Winter Wishes: Letters to Santa Madonna Glass Totem Winter Rousseau Jennifer Glass: Cyanotypes Cyanotype Greek: kyano (blue; dark blue) + Greek: typos (type or form; print) English 1835-1845 Jennifer Glass captures moments in the life of women through her cyanotypes of vintage gowns. Selected from her private collection, these gowns are reproduced as cyanotypes through a process that the artist sees as a deeply metaphorical statement on the roles of women, politics, power, and fashion. Specifically, this body of work emphasizes the artist’s affinity for fashion as a polarized narrative. The large-scale reproductions are strong in their Prussian blue impressions while fragile in their ghost-like translucency. Glass explains that her connection to the world of fashion elicits a “strong emotional response to how [fashion] may either empower or constrain a woman depending on how she uses it”…she continues: “fashion has been used as a tool by women for years and although it has confined them in many ways, it also has liberated them…these garments belonged to someone.” Glass notes that although the women who wore these garments are now gone, in their time they danced, brought about new life, felt pleasure and pain, and likely changed policy, leaving their own imprint on the world however large or small. Glass’ prints are created through the deceptively basic methods of light exposure and chemical preparation on fabrics. The cyanotype was pioneered in 1842 by Sir John Herschel as a photographic method to quickly duplicate technical drawings that are normally time-consuming to draw and reproduce. Herschel discovered that when iron salts react with sunlight they leave a permanent blue imprint. When paper or porous fabric is treated with a solution of ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide, almost any image may be reproduced if it is drawn on a transparent surface, placed over the photosensitive paper in a darkroom and then exposed to sunlight. The areas of the photosensitive paper (or canvas/fabric) that are concealed by the lines of the drawing remain white while the exposed areas turn into an insoluble blue, resulting in a reverse silhouette. In 1843, shortly after Herschel developed the cyanotype, his friend and colleague Anna Atkins, a recognized botanist, utilized the cyanotype method to catalogue her extensive botanical collection. By placing her algae specimens on the photosensitized paper, she created the first known volume of cyanotype photograms. Atkins went on to self-publish her cyanotypes in her book: Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions. Atkins published three volumes and only seventeen copies were reproduced. As a photographer, Jennifer Glass is carrying on this tradition in contemporary times, a method that has gone underutilized since the advent of digital reproductions. A Florida native, Jennifer Glass earned a Bachelor of Art degree in Social and Political Science from Florida State University. Glass went on to study photography at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale along with taking workshops in New York with well-regarded photographers Debbie Fleming Caffery and Mary Ellen Mark. Glass currently resides in Copenhagen, Denmark. Ann Marie Rousseau: Sight Lines Ann Marie Rousseau is a photographer, artist and writer formerly of New York City and currently living in southern California. She works with photography, painting and drawing on paper. Rousseau has a deep interest in line in all its manifestations - drawn, painted, photographed. Madonna and Child: Selections from the Accatino Collection The Museum of Art & History is proud to present an exhibition showcasing Madonna and Child paintings from the Tom and Christie Accatino Collection. Dating from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, the selections feature Madonna and Child paintings from Russia, Ukraine, and Spanish Colonial origins. The Accatino’s are regional collectors, based in Riverside and Palm Springs, whose eclectic tastes range from California landscape painting to Asian artifacts. They have a particular interest in certain themes and approaches associated with the Old Masters, and over the past few years have amassed a group of portraits, still lifes, and religious subjects by various painters – many still unidentified – working in the Baroque and classic styles prevalent in their day. The selections here are in honor of the holidays and include a range of treatments of the Madonna and Child subject. Kokeshi and the Totem: the Art of David Svenson and Kazumi Kobayashi Svenson David Svenson and Kazumi Kobayashi Svenson are mixed-media sculptors based in the High Desert of southern California. They both share an affection for folk art traditions, in particular the kokeshi: wooden Japanese dolls, and the wooden totems of Pacific Northwestern tribes. This exhibition highlights the Svenson’s traditional kokeshi collection and its influence on David and Kazumi’s mixed media work, which includes hand blown glass, neon, wood and concrete. Through their artwork and teaching, David and Kazumi are helping to keep folk art traditions alive by sharing their collection with the public and creatively interpreting the kokeshi and the totem through contemporary art-making methods. Although the couple shares an affinity for folk art traditions and sculpting with glass, neon and mixed-media, they come from very different backgrounds. David Svenson grew up in the 1960’s among the many contrasts of southern California. He was surrounded by the flashy neon signage of historic State Route 66 standing out against the vast expanses of citrus groves that dominated the landscape at the time. David recalls the contrast of multicolored light emanating from the neon signs against the darkness of night as an important impression on his aesthetic development. David subsequently left California to study Tlingit art and culture in Alaska where he witnessed the breathtaking displays of the Aurora Borealis. Having a similar effect on his aesthetic development, the use of light became central to his studio practice. While working with the tribes, David was equally influenced by the way of life practiced among the Tlingit families that adopted him into their clan. There, art and life are intertwined in daily interactions and the overarching respect for life is honored through the arts and gift-giving. Totems are always made for someone else, to honor another family or clan. David recognizes kokeshi and totems as fine craft, and sees kokeshi as similar to the Pacific Rim totems because they both honor the family and the spirit of gift-giving. In addition to his studio practice, David teaches at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and has taught classes at the Pilchuck Glass School, in Seattle, Washington; the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York; Urban Glass in Brooklyn, New York, and internationally. He continues to work periodically with a team of Alaska Native totem carvers. Learning, teaching, and sharing skills and knowledge about glass, neon, art and the cultures of the Pacific rim are central aspects of David's life and work. Kazumi Kobayashi Svenson was born in Sendai, Japan, the heart of kokeshi country. She creates miniature kokeshi as well as drawings and sculpture. Kazumi’s interest in kokeshi began while growing up with her mother’s traditional kokeshi collection, which consists of wooden dolls made in the 1930’s of Japanese maple, Cherry or Dogwood. The family collection contained examples from Onsen, an area in northern Japan renowned for its hot springs and kokeshi workshops that lined the streets offering the dolls for sale to tourists and locals. Traditional kokeshi are meant to honor the loss of a child or simply be given as a souvenir to bring happiness to the home. The floral and linear patterns painted on their kimonos have been developed and passed down through generations of kokeshi craftsman and are distinctive to the area where they are made. The 2011 Fukushima earthquake was centered in kokeshi country, a devastation that has taken an additional toll on keeping the tradition alive. Kazumi works in the relatively new “Creative Kokeshi” style which developed after the second World War as a departure from traditional doll making. Although many Creative Kokeshi retain the traditional limbless body, contemporary interpretations often show a more shapely body and additional features such as hair and perhaps a more colorful and exquisitely patterned kimono. The features, materials, and styles of Creative Kokeshi are always unique to their creator. Kazumi utilizes glass as her choice of material and creates in a range of scales from tiny dolls made of individual hand blown glass beads to the larger Italian glass and neon pieces. Because the traditional method of creating kokeshi was by lathe turned wood, it converts easily to glassblowing due to the similar methods of turning the material either by a blow pipe or in using a mandrel for bead-making. She often places her Creative Kokeshi miniatures in a mixed media ensemble of neon and old boxes, perhaps referencing her move to America and symbolically bringing the childhood collection with her. Kazumi recalls that the experience of coming to America afforded her the opportunity to see her own culture from a new perspective and allowed her to translate the traditional art form into her own visual language. Kazumi has been blowing glass for twenty two years as well as teaching the craft in Japan. She first began studying neon in the United States in 1994 and has continued combining neon with glass and exhibiting internationally. Gary Baseman: The Seven Sacred Magi MOAH is honored to bring the artwork of multitalented and internationally celebrated artist Gary Baseman to the Antelope Valley. Born and raised in Hollywood, the artist crosses many disciplines as a painter, illustrator, video and performance artist, animator, TV/movie producer, curator, and toy designer. His artwork captures the bittersweet realities of life: playful yet vicious, naughty but nice and always telling a story layered with the pleasures and pain that life brings across generations. Winter Wishes: Letter to Santa This charming exhibition showcased letters and drawings to Santa inside paper snow globes from local Antelope Valley school children. Baseman View or Download the Holiday 2012 Exhibition Catalog by clicking on the cover image or here.

Experiences Hotels & Restaurants N ear MOAH Marriott Residence Inn Settle in at Residence Inn Lancaster, our extended-stay hotel located two miles from downtown. Built on a mixed-use space, the brand-new hotel places you near upscale apartments, trendy restaurants and bars, and of course, MOAH. (Click the link below to book, at a discounted rate.) Learn More Best Western PLUS Desert Poppy Inn Settle in at Best Western Desert Poppy Inn Lancaster, our hotel located two miles from downtown. The hotel offers c omplimentary daily breakfast buffet, an open b ar in evenings (Mon-Fr i, 5 PM-9 PM), h igh speed internet access, m ini refrigerators and microwaves in each room, an o nsite business center, a f itness center, a Sundry shop, and an o utdoor pool and spa. (Click the link below to book, at a discounted rate.) Learn More Destination Lancaster Destination Lancaster is the official tourism bureau and destination marketing organization for the Antelope Valley. They help promote local attractions, special events and unique experiences found throughout the AV. Visit their site to help plan your night out in Lancaster. Learn more Don Sal's Delicious Mexican food prepared with love. This restaurant is a family and community favorite and we believe one of the best Mexican restaurants in the Antelope Valley (Yelp agrees). Learn More > Things To Do Near MOAH Sassy Bird Specializing in Nashville-Style hot chicken, Sassy Bird is a Lancaster staple. Enjoy a Sassy Sando or one of their delicious sides. Learn More > Modern Tea Room "A modern take on an ancient beverage." Modern Tea Room offers a wonderful assortment of hand-crafted and artisanal teas and cafe-style sandwiches. Something for everybody. Learn More > Lucky Luke Brewery Lucky Luke's focuses on the art of quality craft beer and the great people brought together by it. They brew their beers with a passion for every element and process that brings these hand-crafted beers to your palette. Learn More > Bravery Brewing Founded in 2011, Bravery Brewing is a micro-brewery that crafts adventurous, memorable, and delicious beers for their community. Learn More > Complexity Wine Complexity Wine has let their love of wine and quality ingredients lead them down a ten year journey into learning and enjoying everything wine has to offer. Learn More > Olive's Cafe Olives Mediterranean Café makes customers’ satisfaction a priority in our daily cooking, serving, and catering needs. Dine in, take out, or have it catered straight to your home or office. Learn More > FloraDonna's Cakery In 2018, FloraDonna's opened up their very own shop on Lancaster Blvd. They provide wonderful baked goods for their customers. Learn More > Caramel Pastries Establishes in 2006, Caramel Pastries provides a wonderful selection of hand-made baked goods and sweets. Learn More >

Rentals Create memories at MOAH. Booking one of our marvelous spaces for your special event. PLEASE NOTE: We are pausing rental requests until January 5, 2026. We appreciate your patience and look forward to working with you in the new year! Stylish, spacious, and unique! Imagine the possibilities of your next event at one of 4 rental venues at MOAH! Our Spaces Museum of Art and History - Entire Museum* * No food and drinks are allowed in the galleries - Lantern Room with Terrace - Classroom CEDAR Center for the Arts Hall Prime Desert Woodland Preserve Pavillion Western Hotel Museum Garden For more info, contact our Rentals Coordinator at moahrentals@cityoflancasterca.org CEDAR Center Hall Prime Desert Woodland Preserve Pavilion Western Hotel Museum Garden MOAH Rooftop Terrace MOAH Lantern Room View or Download the Facility Rental Application by clicking here . Apply Visit the link before to see frequently asked questions regarding rentals. Rental FAQ

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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

An assorted community quilt project portraying visual representations of home, highlighting the humanist aspect of her work. Up We Are Home Shelley Heffler An assorted community quilt project portraying visual representations of home, highlighting the humanist aspect of her work. Cut, slash, crunch, and weave. These words encapsulate the fluidity of motion that defines the work of Los Angeles-based artist Shelley Heffler. Growing up in the Bronx, Heffler’s experiences navigating the subways of New York City root her artistic practice. The traces of transit maps are visible in the lines and forms in the composition of her work. Heffler’s recent work, We Are Home (2020), is an assorted community quilt project portraying visual representations of home, highlighting the humanist aspect of her work. Heffler, in her work, often uses glimpses and collages of various colors and textures to create an urban aesthetic. Heffler’s work combines waste and other byproducts of consumerism meshed with paint to create a trance-like cartographic composition, manifesting into the landscape of an altered world. With We Are Home , Heffler utilizes her artistic process in quilt-making, soliciting local residents to submit a 12” x 12” quilt block using objects and inspiration from their home. These assorted squares are then curated into the community quilt. This end product addresses the feeling of isolation during the quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing the thoughts of what home means to oneself. June 5 – September 5, 2021 Back to list

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We’re excited to announce MOAH on the Move, a new program that continues to offer arts and community engagement to the Antelope Valley during the museum’s temporary closure. MOAH will be closed for renovations from August 21, 2022, through May 12, 2023. MOAH on the Move will host artist and community engagement events at different public parks once a month during the closure. View the event schedule below. Saturday, October 15, 2022 10AM - 2PM El Dorado Park 44501 North 5th Street East with artist Vojislav Radovanović Saturday, November 19, 2022 10AM - 2PM Tierra Bonita Park 44910 27th Street East with artist Dani Dodge Saturday, December 17, 2022 10AM - 2PM Deputy Pierre Bain Park 45045 North 5th Street East with artist Dani Dodge Sunday, January 15, 2023 12 - 4 PM Justice Sunday - The BLVD Lancaster Blvd with artists Lori Antoinette and Dani Dodge Saturday, February 18, 2023 10AM - 2PM Whit Carter Park 45635 Sierra Hwy with artist Nicelle Davis Saturday, March 18, 2023 10AM - 2PM Mariposa Park 45755 North Fig Avenue with artist Nicelle Davis Saturday, April 15, 2023 10AM - 2PM Forrest E. Hull Park 2850 West Avenue L-12 with artist Nicelle Davis

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

Up The Robot Show Various Artists Solo exhibitions: Dave Pressler Jeff Soto Cristopher Cichocki Chenhung Chen Alex Kritselis Robert Nelson Karen Hochman Brown Patrick McGillligan The Robot Show is comprised of eight exhibitions exploring the place robots, and other forms of artificial intelligence, have in a contemporary social landscape – from popular culture to nature and spirituality. Featured in the Main Gallery at MOAH is a retrospective of Emmy-nominated artist and animator, Dave Pressler. The Robot Show also showcases the solo exhibitions of Jeff Soto, Patrick McGilligan, Robert Nelson and Karen Hochman Brown, with site specific installations by artists Cristopher Cichocki, Alexander Kritselis, and Chenhung Chen. Dave Pressler’s 20-year retrospective, Idea to Object , is a narrative of his career, which focuses on how he made his ideas a reality. Pressler’s robots are fixtures in popular culture and he is best known for his Emmy-nominated Nickelodeon series, Robot and Monster . “Pressler’s work appeals to audiences of all ages,” says Andi Campognone, Curator at MOAH. “His work is a great example of the combination of strong contemporary concepts and expert craft, and we are so excited to exhibit his work for both the Lancaster and greater Los Angeles communities.” Jeff Soto, in the East Gallery, is a pop-surrealist who also features robots prominently in his bold paintings and murals, which are meant to evoke nostalgia and the natural environment. In the South Gallery, Cristopher Cichocki furthers this connection between the artificial and the natural with his newest body of work, Divisions of Land and Sea , which combines audiovisual performance and black light painting into an immersive environment. Karen Hochman Brown’s digital photographic compositions will be highlighted in the North Gallery joining Robert Nelson’s robot paintings in the Wells Fargo Gallery along with Patrick McGilligan’s work in the Museum’s lobby and atrium. Alexander Kritselis will feature one of his multimedia installations in windows of the Museum’s Hernando and Fran Marroquin Family Classroom. Rounding out this exhibition is Chenhung Chen, a Los Angeles-based artist, who will be installing her technology-based towers in the Vault Gallery. Dave Pressler: Idea to Object Dave Pressler is a Chicago born, Los Angeles based artist and character designer who has used sculpture and illustration to fuse together his passions for fine art and pop entertainment. He is a self-described “blue-collar artist,” meaning he subscribes to the notion that there is no such thing as high or low art because all art requires skill, technique and imagination regardless of medium or intent. This exhibition is a survey of Pressler’s 20 year career, focusing on whimsical portraits of robots and fantasy creatures. Dave Pressler’s Idea to Object exhibition gives the public the opportunity to view the thought process in character designing, and the transformation from idea to object. This installation includes work made over two decades, as well as themes of demystifying the art process, and demonstrated through learning technique and hard work that anyone who wants to can pursue art. Pressler has collaborated with many notable artists including Mark Ryden, Camille Rose Garcia and Ron English. Pressler has worked from the smallest scale to sculpting large scale robots both for exhibition and for fun. He recently created a custom printed robot in partnership with Pretty In Plastic. This robot is hand painted and a limited edition, the Shut Up And Draw! robot will come with a custom pencil and stand 8 inches tall. In addition to sculpting, character development and animation Pressler is a celebrated illustrator and recently released the Scholastic book Back to School with Big Foot. Dave Pressler is an Emmy-nominated television producer, character designer, animator, illustrator, sculptor and painter. Over his career he has designed characters and IPs for a variety of children’s entertainment companies and co-created Nickelodeon’s Robot and Monster and the stop-motion animated series How to Do Everything with Garrick and Marvin for DreamWorksTV. Concurrently, his designer toys and artwork have been sold in galleries all over the world. Dave Pressler currently resides in Los Angeles and is committed to creating at least one robot a day. Jeff Soto: Futuregods In his formative years, Jeff Soto discovered traditional painting and street graffiti at the same time. This simultaneous exploration of both worlds conceived his unique style and continues to inform his work to this day. His distinct color palette, subject matter and technique bridges the gap between pop surrealism and street art, inspired by youthful nostalgia, nature and popular culture. Soto depicts friendly creatures and personifications of earth’s forces that thrive in a dystopian environment plagued by the complexities of modern living. The robot-like creatures wear friendly smiles that may mask their real intentions. They are super complex beings, just as we are; some are good and some are evil, but most are somewhere in between. Soto’s otherworldly creatures roam the surreal landscape and are surrounded by overgrown greenery, deteriorating technology and overall societal decay. Plants and wildlife are taking over technology and in many cases merging together. However, Soto’s use of vibrant colors and organic shapes evoke a sense of hope and effort to revitalize, communicating themes of family, nature, life and death. In addition to painting and commercial illustration, Jeff Soto has been painting murals internationally including New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Miami, London and Paris. Soto shows with Jonathan Levine Gallery in New York City. He is represented by B&A Reps for illustration work. He will be one of the featured POW!WOW! Antelope Valley artists in Lancaster this October. Jeff Soto received an Associate’s degree from Riverside City College, a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and currently resides in Riverside, California. Cristopher Cichocki: Divisions of Land and Sea Cristopher Cichocki encapsulates the cycle of decay and renewal through an examination between humankind, the natural world and industrial production. Expanding upon the historical trajectory of Land Art, Cichocki underlines the increasingly toxic global environment confronting our planet in the new millennium. Situated on the fringe of art and natural science, the artist’s environmental interventions reflect on the timeline spanning from prehistoric oceans to present-day transmutations. For decades, Cichocki’s work has been immersed in the desert of southern California, responding to the dynamic ecology and water issues of the region through interconnected works of painting, sculpture, video, photography, performance, sound, installation and architectural intervention. The contrasting application of fluorescent color in Cichocki’s palette stems from his earlier explorations of street markings used for construction and infrastructural development. In the midst of desert landscapes once submerged underwater, these fluorescent applications become further amplified as suggestions of deep sea bioluminescence when exposed under the ultraviolet radiation of black light. Divisions of Land and Sea merges both as excavations and restorations distilled from elements Cichocki regards as surviving seeds from an ancient ocean. Cichocki received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of Art, CalArts, Valencia, California. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions around the world in such institutions as the Museum of Image and Sound, São Paulo; Bienalle Urbana, Venice; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; Casa França-Brasil, Rio de Janerio; Museum of Moving Image, New York; Portland Museum of Contemporary Art, Portland, Oregon; Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California; Artere-A, Guadalajara; Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, California; MM Center Cinema, Zagreb, Croatia; and The Paseo Project, Taos, New Mexico. Cichocki works and resides in the Coachella Valley in California. Chenhung Chen: I Ching in America 2.0 In her work, Chenhung Chen is completely involved with line, having first recognized its power in Chinese calligraphy and painting, and later American Abstract Expressionism. Through her line focus, she is able to express feelings of delicacy, power, buoyancy, strength and constant motion. The linear qualities inherent in nature also inform her assemblage process and creative vision. Her work refers to dichotomy: concord and dissonance, stillness and chaos, the beautiful and the grotesque, the subtle and the powerful. From her urban recluse experience, through mixed media works, Chen strives to express her perception of the inner existence: its simplicity and its profundity. Included in her freestanding 3D work are recycled materials, or the detritus of technology, such as copper wire, electrical wire and an array of electronic and computer components. The fact that this material’s original function was to harness electrical power and transform its potential, bending it to the will of man, is fascinating to Chen. In her 2D work, she experiments with materials from graphite to ink, oil to acrylic, paper to canvas, as well as daily use objects with linear qualities. Chen graduated from the Chinese Cultural University and received her Master of Fine Art at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She has traveled the world spending time in India, Malaysia, Australia, Thailand, North Eastern China as well as Beijing and Rome, as a volunteer for the Prem Rawat Foundation working for global peace. Her artwork has been exhibited across the United States and internationally including locations throughout the Los Angeles and San Diego area, New York, Utah and Taiwan. Chenhung Chen was born in Beigang, Taiwan, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Alex Kritselis: Predator/Prey Alex Kritselis is a multidisciplinary artist who grew up in Athens, Greece. Over the past 10 years, along with his paintings and sculptures, he has created numerous private and public site-specific installations, video presentations, and mixed media works, often collaborating with his wife, cinematographer Joey Forsyte. Kritselis moved to the US in the mid seventies to be part of the discourse surrounding contemporary issues in the visual arts. His work involves the examination of ancient myths, their relevance to traditional linear storytelling, influence on contemporary mores and present-day discourse on contemporary mythology and its links to the past. Kritselis is greatly influenced by Greece. He integrates classical rendering techniques with digital and other contemporary modalities. His art reflects on the individual and collective memory, as well as the friction of values past, present and future in our pursuit of self-determination and self-knowledge. The art he makes resemble fragmented pieces of memories and personal and collective histories. Traditional narrative and modern communication are woven together and “pixelated” into individual panels of wood, paper and metal. Painted, printed or engraved, they are in and of themselves complete works of art - free-floating thoughts, symbols, and impressions. When assembled, they embody the fragmentation of time and memory in history and mythology. Alex Kritselis received his MFA in Sculpture and Painting from Hornsey College of Art in London, England. With a scholarship from the Greek Academy of Arts and Sciences, he continued with postgraduate studies in sculpture at the Academia Della Beli Arti in Florence, Italy. He has taught at institutions in California and Texas, including Otis College of Art and Design, Pomona College, Claremont Graduate University, Texas University and Pasadena City College where he served as the Dean of the Visual Arts and Media Studies Division from 2002 to 2012. Kritselis serves on the Board of Armory Center for the Arts and has exhibited nationally and internationally in more than 25 solo and 50 invitational exhibits. Robert Nelson: Awakening The influence of Renaissance master painters is immediately apparent in Robert Nelson’s work, seen through his incorporation of faces from the paintings of Raphael or Bronzino, combined with the shape of his paintings which are often reminiscent of Medieval or Renaissance palace windows. Robert Nelson’s work mixes the hyper-realistic and the surreal, likewise, his subjects combine the familiar with the unexpected. Nelson’s work is about juxtaposition, using images that convey meaning on both an immediate and personal level, images that also seem to require the viewer to find a deeper meaning for themselves behind the themes and ideas that the artist explores. Robert Nelson’s work makes for a peculiar but intriguing union as he combines 16th century Italian Renaissance with modern imagery and concepts of our contemporary, technologically inclined world. He is transfixed by technology and also the compression of time. As our world is engulfed by the likes of computers, robots or other forms of evolved intelligence, Nelson takes a more analog approach to the work and does not use computers. All of his pieces are hand drawn using multiple layers of colored pencil and acrylic then sealed, giving the final product a glossy finish. Nelson studied Fine Art/Studio Art in college, and later joined the Navy. After retiring from the Navy, he went back to school and attended Platt College in San Diego where he studied graphic design and multimedia design. He worked as a graphic designer for over fifteen years and for the last eight has been working seriously as a fine artist. His works have been included in exhibitions since 2008 in San Diego and Los Angeles. Among the galleries where he has exhibited are The Los Angeles Art Association / Gallery 825, Los Angeles, Southwest College Art Gallery, Chula Vista, Orange Coast College, Costa Mesa, Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica. Karen Hochman Brown: Elementals Karen Hochman Brown’s fascination with tessellations began as a young girl looking through her own handmade kaleidoscopes. Juxtaposing photography, digital processes and print with natural imagery, Hochman Brown continues this ritual exploration by creating her mandala-like images, examining the relationship between technological and natural environments. Hochman Brown turns and spins her brightly illuminated, photographic reflections creating a composition that is unbound by the limitation of the three-way reflection or a flat mirror technique of traditional kaleidoscopes. This process allows her artwork to play in the realm of infinite imagery, as she alters layer after layer to create a single, new composition from multiple, disparate reflections. Combining her digital process with a more traditional mixed-media approach, Hochman Brown furthers her examination of the virtual and physical manifestations of nature. Hochman Brown’s exploration of the natural and artificial are inspired by the distinct, immediate marriage of mathematical precision and aesthetic beauty. As exemplified in Elementals, Hochman Brown utilizes the four classical elements of air (aer), water (aqua), fire (ignus) and earth (terra) and both simple and complex machines as tools to reinterpret and manipulate the naturals world. Aer should feel like breath; Terra is solid yet fertile; Ignus is unstable and volatile; Aqua is powerful and ever-changing. Returning to the act of physically creating artwork composed of charmeuse, silk dupioni, wool, wood, aluminum and acrylic paint, Hochman Brown offers a softer quality to buffer against the technological noise that clutters daily life. Hochman Brown received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Pitzer College in Claremont, California. She continued to study math and post-graduate work at California College of Arts and Crafts, creating a course titled Construction Geometry via Art. She has spent time teaching this curriculum at the Arts Magnet High School in Oakland and The Waldorf School in Altadena, California. She has studied graphic design at the University of California, Los Angeles and Art Center College of Design, Pasadena. Patrick McGilligan: Robot and Friends Iconoclastic, irreverent and yet somehow sympathetic, Patrick McGilligan depicts dreamlike characters rising from the depths of popular culture and his own personal narrative. In fleeting moments of interaction, McGilligan examines tropes of popular culture: flying monkeys, aliens, cyclopes, killer robots and grotesque bodies with helpless facial expressions in concentrated moments of abject despair. McGilligan rejects the notion that this world is one of grace, beauty and simplistic perfection with his portraits, inventing his own garish, surreal pop-mythology. Inspired by his childhood growing up in the late 1970s, McGilligan references classic monster and horror movies of the day including Japanese and American staples such as Godzilla and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. He uses these icons as an entry point, delving into a futuristic realm of science fiction - exploring an alternate reality inhabited by giant robots in a world where humankind is subjugated and machines are worshipped as the new gods. Patrick McGilligan, also known as “The Lethargic Artist”, is a southern California-based artist known for his work on the windows of the Santa Monica VIDIOTS video rental store. McGilligan grew up in Norwalk, California and is a self-taught artist. He has exhibited at Art Share L.A., Coagula Curatorial, MuzeuMM and Keystone Art Space, with shows such as Never Have I Ever , Exquisite Pittoresco , Nude Survey Five , The $99 Painting Show and The PussyCat Challenge . McGilligan has recently published a book called The Lethargic Artist Coloring Book . August 4 - September 27, 2018 Back to list