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Up Legacy Various Artists Eric Johnson: Legacy A 30 Retrospective Main Gallery Craig Kauffman, Dewain Valentine, John Paul Jones, Tony DeLap, Tom Jenkins East Gallery Lisa Barleson: 3M Jewel Box Jennifer Faist: The Deepest Tales Stay Etched Well Fargo Gallery Andrew Benson Education Gallery R.Nelson Parrish: Meditations on NorCal Top of Stairs Charles Dickson: Legacy A Lifetime Survey South Gallery Legacy takes a close look at how artists spanning different generations influence each other and their communities. Legacy is defined as something passed down by a predecessor; in art, that “something” can range from material techniques to inner wisdom. Legacy is the fruit of passion and dedication that overflows from an individual into the lives of many—legacy is inspiring. Eric Johnson: LEGACY A 30 Year Retrospective Science and engineering have become so complex, even fantastical, that sometimes I forget the very simple, seemingly miraculous, fact – that an equation of symbols can describe, even predict, the phenomena that define and shape the physical world; that there are underlying functions of some dark math waiting to be discovered. Yet, math is only an abstract construct we imposed on the surrounding world. Things are not actually as rigid and perfect as the models that describe them. There's always some deviation, deformity, some slight departure from perfect, however infinitesimal. The “grid” doesn’t really exist. But this can be experienced and explored just as much through art. By looking at any of Eric Johnson’s sculptures individually, this is readily apparent. But looking through the sketches, studies, models, and fully-finished works spanning over thirty years, any visitor of Eric's retrospective will develop a heightened sensitivity to the breadth of ideas that influence an artist, and how they develop and coalesce into an interwoven body of work. How the nascent interest is reiterated and refined. The scope of what challenges and influences an artist in the making of an individual piece is not always apparent from a single work of art, maybe not even to the artist himself. However, stretching out an artist’s work over thirty years models the enormity of the subconscious process at any given moment in art-making. Because at any given moment, you don’t actually know everything you know. Eric's work is great for a retrospective for this very reason. From the first piece of the retrospective’s thirty-year span, Two Towers, you can see ideas that still recur in his most recent works. First, it introduces to the rigid, grid-conforming structures of math (i.e., the rectangular prism), the most minimal distortion to ordered form. It also prompts the viewer to ask about the material – how was this twist formed? Was it carved that way or was it shaped by torsion? Is the process the same for metal as it is for wood? Even early works that seem unrelated to his more recent and developed pieces share common threads or ideas. For example, his early drawings of tea cups, suspended mid-fall, demonstrate both Eric's interest in the laws of nature (in this case, gravity) and the properties of materials (fragility). As Eric became more eloquent with resin, wood and paint, his ability to interlock and weave multiple concepts through a single work bloomed as well. The more recent individual pieces in Eric's oeuvre evoke a variety of forms and ideas. In his composite resin "hearts," allusions range from weathered seashell to solar flare; they look sturdy as vertebra, but delicate as porcelain dish. You also get a fantastic sense of the material itself. As the disks narrow and taper, they reveal how the material behaves under varying thickness. And it takes a master of a material to enable a layman to explore it with commensurate depth. Other works, such as Pasopna, look ossified, yet wilted; organic, yet shaped by a grid; warped, yet structurally sound. Others have even more curious combinations: carapace and fluid-dynamic structures, horns and airplane spars. MOAH’s proximity to the aerospace industry makes this a great place to contemplate these pairings of manufactured and organic, mathematical theory and physical surface. Southern California, too, is an appropriate place to watch Eric infuse Southern California’s Light-and-Space and Finish Fetish movements with biology and deviation, almost like he’s moving backwards, stretching the immaculate surface over equation and bone. -Andi Campognone, Curator Craig Kauffman, Dewain Valentine, John Paul Jones, Tony DeLap, Tom Jenkins Johnson’s exhibition is paired by a group exhibition showcasing work made by his artistic mentors, DeWain Valentine, Tony DeLap, Craig Kauffman, Tom Jenkins and John Paul Jones. DeWain Valentine is best known for using industrial materials such as fiberglass, Plexiglass, cast acrylic and polyester resin to produce large scale sculptures that reflect and distort the light around them. Tony DeLap’s work is known for its illusionistic qualities, influenced by his interest in magic. Craig Kauffman paintings are known for their openness and dynamic use of line and his sculptures are known for their experimental materials and vivid color. Tom Jenkins makes paintings that are drawn using spinning tops and various hand-made mechanical drawing devices. John Paul Jones was a painter, printmaker and sculptor widely recognized for both his figurative and abstract work. All these artists played an important role in the development of Johnson’s professional and personal life. Lisa Bartleson: Q & A with Andi Campognone, MOAH Manager/Curator What is your relationship with artist Eric Johnson? / How did you first meet? Bartleson: Eric is one of my dearest friends and confidants; he is family. Our first encounter was very funny – especially knowing Eric as well as I do now. The first thing he said to me was, “Looks like you swallowed a five dollar bill and it broke out in pennies,” and I thought, “Who is this crazy artist?” It wasn’t long after this encounter that I learned that this crazy artist was Eric Johnson well known for his mastery of resin and mold-making. I was at a place in my career where I wanted to learn how to work with resin. I asked a mutual friend if she would introduce us. I arrived at Eric’s studio with a specific agenda, to learn how to create objects using resin. My first lesson with Eric and likely most important was that there really isn’t room for agendas – particularly when you are learning a new material. I learned that there needed to be openness to the creating process, to surrender any expectations. As a mentor, Eric gave me just enough guidance so that I didn’t fall on my face too hard. For me, this was perfect. The real learning came from mistakes that I made – with the two of us trying to figure a path forward. After mentoring with Eric, I left the studio with far more skills and knowledge than when I started. More importantly, I was left with a better understanding of how to be an artist –what it means to be an artist and how to stand on two feet and be vulnerable in your thinking and strong in your practice at the same time. How has Johnson influenced your studio practice? Bartleson: Often times when I am sanding or having a problem with a piece, I think WWED (what would Eric do)? The answer usually is that I have to pause, go back to 320 sandpaper and rework the surface until it is perfect and ready for the next level. Something that a lot of folks may not know about Eric is that he is fiercely driven. I always try to channel this energy while preparing for exhibitions. Jennifer Faist: Q & A with Andi Campognone, MOAH Manager/Curator What is your relationship with artist Eric Johnson? / How did you first meet? Faist: Eric and I first met through another artist when I attended a show of his work at Simayspace in San Diego in 1996. At the time, I was the gallery director for Susan Street Fine Art in Solano Beach and was working to bring a traveling group exhibition called, “The New Structuralists,” to the gallery. Eric was one of the artists in that show, and I got to know him and his work. We remained in touch and followed each other’s work in the ensuing years. In 2004, I curated a group exhibition at ANDLAB, “Suspension,” which included his work, and in 2005, we were in a two-person show together in Palm Springs entitled, “Less a Thing...” From August, 2006 to April, 2009, I shared Eric’s studio in San Pedro. My husband and I were living in the loft, and I had half of the storefront area for studio space. Eric was using the warehouse area for his studio space, and we shared the resin booth in the yard. How has Johnson influenced your studio practice? Faist: Eric’s studio was the largest space that I had ever worked in. There was room to pin up color swatches and pattern studies. I could hang finished paintings on the walls with room to stand back and look and still have plenty of room for my work table and drying racks. It allowed me to think bigger and make some larger work. Sharing a studio also meant having another artist to bounce ideas off of and get feedback on my paintings. During my time there, Eric was working on “The Maize Project,” so I got to see his casting processes in person for an extended period of time. The social aspect and personal connections made during casting parties and studio visits were also influential. I even had the opportunity to meet some of the trailblazers of “California Light and Space” through Eric, like DeWain Valentine and Craig Kauffman. How does this influence manifest itself in your work? Faist: I think the reason we made good studio mates is that we shared an affinity for resin Finish Fetish artwork, painting/sculpture hybrids and an analogous layering process. Eric exposed me to different kinds of pigments like those used in the automotive industry. I think that allowed me to feel freer to use more metallic and interference pigments in my paint layering process than I had before. Andrew Benson: Q & A with Andi Campognone, MOAH Manager/Curator What is your relationship with artist Eric Johnson? Benson: I worked for Eric as a studio assistant from roughly 1997 to 2000, starting in his Santa Monica studio through the build-out of his first San Pedro studio. At the time I was 17 and had run away from the desert to figure what my purpose was in the world. Eric was as much a mentor, surrogate father and friend as he was my boss -- I even slept on his couch for some time when my precarious living situations fell through. How has Johnson influenced your studio practice? Benson: My time working with Eric impressed upon me a specific approach to materials and tools that I still carry through my practice even though my work is now primarily digital video and animation. With resin, a synthetic material that carries with it a chemical background and accepted practice -- Eric developed a style of working that had little to do with the instruction labels but developed organically from years of handling, watching and feeling the material. On any given piece, throughout the work, we would engineer makeshift jigs, contraptions and tools to make the work possible. The way that Eric built surface color from the outside in was an approach I had never seen before and it was stunning. Every sculpture was the result of this process that was as much magic as it was chemistry, engineering and practical labor. I learned the way that a radial sander feels in my hand when it's doing the right thing, how to hold steady a slippery piece of hard resin polished to a frosted glass surface while the spinning machine in my other hand removed any imperfections. The best comparison I can think of for the work is that of an artisanal bread maker, learning the art of kneading, fermentation, shaping the dough and knowing through practice what it needs to be absolutely amazing. How does this influence manifest itself in your work? Benson: For my own working process, I've primarily chosen video and animation created with digital tools, but the way I think of the materiality of digital media owes a great deal to the formative years with Eric. I create my work by tweaking, adjusting and manipulating not just pixels, but the processes that generate and propagate them. I spend a great deal of time thinking about and attempting to reimagine how a digital representation is put together, what are all the processes involved and how many times it gets translated along the way. I've learned just enough hard graphics science to dig deeper into these processes, but the core of the work is in the intuitive chasing after the material, finding something that works even when I don't understand it and building tools around those magical results. The quest to feel and manipulate your mysterious medium and to communicate through these means is a rare approach for electronic media in an age of highly polished CGI and slick production, but it's in my veins at this point. R. Nelson Parrish: Q & A with Andi Campognone, MOAH Manager/Curator What is your relationship with artist Eric Johnson? Nelson: My relationship with Eric Johnson is strictly through myth, legend and reputation. I first became aware of his work through the Maize Project when it exhibited at the Torrance Art Museum in 2008. I had recently completed my graduate program and was amazed at the modular production of the work contrasted with his ability to create stunning, unique pieces. I didn’t think it was possible to make stand-alone pieces, in multiples, using mold production. More importantly, I was impressed how the Maize Project was community based, as there is a key component of including all types of people to collaborate in the making of the work. Both the community of collaborators and the modular production, in my mind, are the hallmarks of the piece. I again saw the Maize Project at William Turner Gallery 2012 and was reminded of modular production. It directly influenced me in creating #100 (1A – 20E) and #105 (Light Over the Pacific). Both pieces are comprised of over 90 smaller pieces that are modular and synergetic in nature. How has Johnson influenced your studio practice? Nelson: Possibly the biggest influence of Johnson’s work on my practice is the engineering of his work. I have never been that precise or mechanical in the fabrication of my work. In the past, my process has been more of a “cowboy up” mentality. Just do it then figure out how to do it better, later. The more and more I engage with Johnson’s work, the more I understand how well engineered and planned out his pieces are -- there is beauty in that. More importantly, I realize that while focusing equally on engineering and planning, as well as the art, one can make far superior pieces than just shooting from the hip and grinding it out. In the end, it is a much better system. How does this influence manifest itself in your work? Conceptually? Nelson: This influence has affected the newest progression of my work immensely. As I switched to a bio based resin, have needed to fabricate molds and am now using aerospace aluminum as core material, all of this requires massive amounts of engineering and scheduling. Johnson and his means of production have influenced my workflow. Constantly pushing materials, tools and boundaries in order to get it all right and all done on time. One could say that it is artisanal fabrication and manufacturing, in the best way possible. To have an idea; how something should look and feel sometimes takes years before it is executed properly. That requires a lot of quiet tenacity and patience. I can see that in Eric’s work and it is inspirational. Conceptually, I am a big color and motion guy. I love the way Johnson’s work takes simple pigment and hue yet while static, makes it flow through form and shape -- simple, elegant and stunning. Charles Dickson: Legacy, A Lifetime Survey Charles Dickson is consumed with how things work in a mechanical, creative, spiritual and political context. As a Sculptor he embraces many mediums, he explores the nature of the materials he uses in order to understand and challenge their properties in traditional and unique applications. At the core of this process Dickson inquires, “How do I learn to speak through the materials, to discover the truth about the materials and express the beauty of my artistic vision?” Dickson’s obsession with finding the truth of a form has been documented in his 45 year homage to the African American woman. Rather than work from an imagined form, he realized early in his career, that he had to undress it, to uncover the truth of its essence. Dickson’s work with black nudes was also the precursor for a much larger artistic dialogue on the politics of beauty and how the consequences of slavery reverberated in contemporary society that has extended throughout his entire career. Dickson states, “This dialogue propelled me to immerse myself into the artistic heritage of Africa, searching for the language, tools and symbols, to recreate and recover the enormous spiritual influence and indigenous beauty this tradition has had on the world. It has also encouraged me to develop works reflecting the unique circumstances of the African American experience that traces back to its African origins.” Charles Dickson is a self-taught artist born in 1947 in Los Angeles, CA. He has public works of art at the Watts Towers, Los Angeles Metro Rail Green Line in El Segundo, Hope and Faith Park in South Los Angeles and the City of Costa Mesa Performing Arts Complex, among others. He is currently an artist in residence at the Watts Towers Arts Center Campus and the Caretaker of the Watts Towers of Simon Rodia with LACMA’s preservation program. He is also working with the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust and Offices of The Trust in Public Land LA River Center to create sculptures within the community. Dickson lives and works in South Central Los Angeles, CA. January 24 - March 15, 2015 Back to list

Up Golden Hour: California Photography from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Various Artists In Golden Hour, over 70 artists and three photography collectives offer an aesthetic approach to understanding the complexities and histories of California. These images, gathered from the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, have come to define the myths, iconographies, and realities of this unique state. Pairing masters of photography with experimental practitioners in a range of lens-based media that includes photo sculpture, vernacular, and video work, the selection blurs the boundaries of the tropes that formed a California identity. With works ranging from the early 1900s to present day, Golden Hour is neither a didactic history of the state nor an inclusive tale of photographic history, but rather artists’ impressions of the state of being in, and being influenced by, California. This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in collaboration with the Lancaster Museum of Art and History; Riverside Art Museum; Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College; and California State University, Northridge, Art Galleries. Local Access is a series of American art exhibitions created through a multi-year, multi-institutional partnership formed by LACMA as part of the Art Bridges + Terra Foundation Initiative. February 7 – May 9, 2021 Back to list

Discover Trunks Lancaster Museum of Art & History is proud to offer the Discover Trunk program: a free traveling trunk program where members of MOAH's Education Team give engaging on-site presentations about different historical topics. Currently, the museum provides the following Discover Trunk topics: Dinosaurs, Ice Age, Ancient Egypt, and Aviation & Aerospace. Discover Trunk presentations are available for education sites, libraries, youth organizations, homeschool daycare groups, community/recreation sites, senior centers, special events, and more. Each Trunk presentation is about 45-60 minutes long and features a variety of tangible objects and artifacts. For back-to-back presentations, please allow a 15-minute transition period between presentations. Please contact the Education Department at (661) 723-6085 or MOAHeducation@cityoflancasterca.gov for more information about the Discover Trunk program. Use the form below to request a traveling Discover Trunk. Please book at least 3 weeks in advance. Interested in field trips? Click Here dinotrunk_Feb20_2024_img1 1/7 Request a Discover Trunk! Primary Contact First Name Primary Contact Last Name Secondary Contact First Name (if applicable) Secondary Contact Last Name (if applicable) Organization Site Address Phone Email Select a Discover Trunk Number of Presentations Number of Participants per Presentation Age of Participants Select prefered month Choose an option Select a date. Must be booked at least THREE WEEKS in advance. (Available only Wednesdays & Fridays) * required Select a preferred time (*If you need accommodations outside of the days and times listed, please contact the Education Department.) 09:00 AM 11:00 AM 01:00 PM Choose a time Please include any further details about your location to help us find you, such as where to park, enter the building, check-in. I want to subscribe to the newsletter. Take a moment to review our Guidelines and Expectations for the Discover Trunk program, and print them for your records. Check the box to confirm you have read and understand these conditions. Guidelines and Expectations Submit

Young Artist Workshops Free Drop-in Craft Workshops for Kids Follow MOAH on Instragram and watch Reels of our upcoming YAW Workshops How it works Young Artist Workshops are free art activities for children ages 3+ (must be accompanied by an adult). The YAWs at MOAH are inspired by artworks that are currently on view, and the YAWs at Elyze Clifford Interpretive Center (ECIC) are inspired by the local, natural environment. Drop In Participants can come to a YAW anytime between 3 and 7 pm. Workshops at MOAH are every first Thursday of the month, and workshop dates for ECIC can be found here . Art activities take about 10-30 minutes to make; seating and supplies are first-come, first-serve. Create Participants create an artwork from start to finish, with all the supplies and guidance provided by MOAH staff. Each YAW is unique and introduces children to a variety of art techniques, materials, and processes. Share Tag any pictures of your finished piece with #MOAHYAW on Facebook or Instagram! YAW at MOAH 665 W Lancaster Blvd, Lancaster, CA 93534 Every 1st Thursd ay 3 PM - 7 PM Event dates can be found on our event calendar (661) 723-6250 YAW at Elyze Clifford Interpretive Center 43201 35th St. W Lancaster, CA, 93536 Every Third Sunday 12 PM - 4 PM Event dates can be found on our event calendar (661) 723-6250

MOAH Exhibitions Filter by Tags Current Exhibition m\other m\other explores motherhood beyond the traditional nuclear family, engaging themes of queer, Indigenous, and spiritual mothering. Through diverse media and perspectives, the exhibition challenges dominant narratives and reimagines motherhood as a site of care, creation, and resilience. Drawing from cultural traditions and personal experiences, the artists reclaim maternal power and highlight alternative forms of kinship and connection. May 10 - August 31, 2025 Learn More Act on It! Artists, Community, and the Brockman Gallery in Los Angeles Organized as part of LACMA’s Art Bridges–supported Local Access initiative, Act on It! Artists, Community, and the Brockman Gallery in Los Angeles will be on view at the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster May 10–August 31, 2025, before travelling to the Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College and then the University Art Gallery at California State University, Dominguez Hills. May 10 - August 31, 2025 Learn More

An exhibition highlights the many achievements and accomplishments of the Armstrong Flight Research Center Up NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center 75th Anniversary NASA An exhibition highlights the many achievements and accomplishments of the Armstrong Flight Research Center The Armstrong Flight Research Center is approximately twenty-two miles northeast of Lancaster. The Armstrong Flight Research Center dates back to 1946, when thirteen engineers and technicians came from the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in Hampton, Virginia to the Muroc Army Air Base presently known as the Edwards Air Force Base in Edwards, California. The migration to Edwards Air Force Base served to prepare for the first supersonic research flights by the X-1 rocket plane. From this project, Edwards Airforce Base established the Armstrong Flight Research Center. This year, 2021, marks the Armstrong Flight Research Center's seventy-fifth anniversary. This exhibition highlights the many achievements and accomplishments the Armstrong Flight Research Center has made possible for the aviation and aerospace field. Strategically and uniquely, the Armstrong Flight Research Center resides in the Antelope Valley area taking advantage of the year-round flying weather and over 300,000 acres of remote land with varied topography. The Armstrong Flight Research Center’s mission is to advance science and technology through flight research towards revolutionizing aviation and aerospace technology. This exhibition shines a light on the research and technological progression the Armstrong Flight Research Center has made in aerospace and aviation. The center has the amenities and expertise to analyze, maintain, and conduct flight research and tests on modified or unique research vehicles and systems. The Armstrong Flight Research Center facility is NASA's primary center for high-risk, atmospheric flight research and test projects. The objects on display are remnants of past programs and projects the Armstrong Flight Research Center conducted. June 5 – September 5, 2021 Back to list

Up British Invasion Various Artists Featured Artists: Andrew Hall Caroline PM Jones Colin Gray David Eddington David Hockney Dave Smith Derek Boshier Eleanor Wood Gordon Senior Graham Moore James Scott Jane Callister Jeremy Kidd Jon Measures Kate Savage Max Presneill Nathaniel Mellors Philip Argent Philip Vaughan Rhea O’Neill Roni Stretch Sarah Danays Shiva Aliabadi Siobhan McClure Trevor Norris Andrew Hall Born in Cambridge, England, Andrew Hall is best known for his graphically stunning, abstract photography. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts with honors in graphic design from Exeter College of Art and Design. A successful commercial photographer, Hall has worked with some of London’s top creative agencies and design consultancies. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California, where he founded the School of Light, a darkroom and studio that mentors budding photographers in traditional darkroom practices as well as digital photography. Caroline PM Jones Born in Aldershot, England, Caroline PM Jones is best known for her sculpture, plein air paintings and portraiture. She studied sculpture at The Art Academy of London and is self-taught as a painter. Jones has created works of art all over the world—her paintings, drawings, sculpture and photography are part of collections in Hong Kong, North America, Britain, China, India, Taiwan, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Gibraltar, South Africa, France and Bermuda. She has exhibited in several local museums and galleries, including: Long Beach City College, 29 Palms Museum and the Los Angeles Arts Association. Jones currently resides in Culver City, California. Colin Gray Born in Torbay, Devonshire, Colin Gray is best known for his drawings and sculptural work. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts from Leeds Polytechnic Art Department in the United Kingdom as well as a Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Gray has had solo shows in several American cities including New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco and has installed public artworks in both Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. Notable accomplishments include the Santa Barbara County Individual Artists Award, as well as a The Pollock Krasner Grant. He taught sculpture for nine years at UCSB’s College of Creative Studies, and currently teaches drawing at Santa Barbara City College’s Center for Lifelong Learning and VITA Art Center in Ventura. Gray currently resides in Ventura, California. David Eddington Born in Bedfordshire, England, David Eddington is best known for his large-scale paintings, rendered in acrylic on linen. He obtained a diploma in mural painting from the Central School in Holborn, London, post-graduate diploma in environmental design from Hornsey College of Art in London, and a master’s degree in the social and political influences in art from the University of Trent in Nottingham. In 2000, the artist relocated to the United States from England. The move coincided with an evolution from figurative, almost photorealistic renderings to a style that is more expressive. Eddington has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally and has lectured extensively at several institutions, including: California State University, Northridge, Louisiana State University, Loyola University, Tulane University, California State University, Long Beach, Plymouth University in Devonshire and Derby University in Derbyshire. He received the British Council Award in 1987 and 1994. Eddington currently resides in Venice, California. David Hockney Born in Bradford, England, David Hockney is, without question, one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century. He is perhaps best known for the body of work he created during his time in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 70s, consisting of iconic paintings of swimming pools and the photo collages he called “joiners”. One of these collages, Pearblossom Highway, features the stretch of Highway 138 that runs through Littlerock at the southeastern edge of the Antelope Valley. “Pearblossom Highway shows a crossroads in a very wide open space, which you only get a sense of in the western United States…I'd had three days of driving and being the passenger. The driver and the passenger see the road in different ways. When you drive you read all the road signs, but when you're the passenger, you don't, you can decide to look where you want. And the picture dealt with that: on the right-hand side of the road it's as if you're the driver, reading traffic signs to tell you what to do and so on, and on the left-hand side it's as if you're a passenger going along the road more slowly, looking all around. So the picture is about driving without the car being in it,” said Hockney of his work. He attended the Bradford College of Art, followed by a two-year period spent working in hospitals to fulfill national service requirements during World War II—Hockney was a conscientious objector to military service—before entering graduate school at the Royal College of Art in London. As a graduate, he experimented with various forms and styles, including Abstract Expressionism. Drawn to California from an early age, Hockney first visited in Los Angeles in 1963, relocating officially in 1964. In a poll of more than 1,000 British artists conducted in 2011, Hockney was voted the most influential British artist of all time. Recently, the artists’ ongoing fascination with technology is a driving force behind his work, as evidenced in the series of iPad paintings he began in 2009. This winter, Taschen will unveil a special SUMO edition book featuring over 450 pieces representative of Hockney’s oeuvre, a project that has been in the making since Taschen first began publishing SUMOs in the late 1990s. An extensive retrospective covering six decades of the artist’s work is set to open at Tate Britain in February 2017, one of the largest exhibitions the museum has ever organized. The retrospective will travel to the Centre Pompidou in Paris following its British inauguration, then to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Today, Hockney actively advocates for arts funding and splits his creative time between homes in London and Malibu, California. Dave Smith Born in Derbyshire England, Dave Smith is best known for his photo-realistic neo-pop paintings. He studied painting at Derby College of Art and Hornsey College of Art before forming the London-based artist’s collective, Electric Colour Company. Primarily serving the vibrant British fashion scene of the late 1960’s, the collective’s first major project was the iconic, Pop-infused Mr. Freedom store at 430 Kings Road in Chelsea. Smith moved to the Bahamas in 1973, ushering in a prolific period of painting in which he showed in a series of 8 solo exhibitions and numerous group shows in Nassau and Miami. He moved to Los Angeles in 1990, where he has worked in television and motion picture studios, painting billboards as well as several backdrops for The Tonight Show. Smith currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Derek Boshier Born in Portsmouth, England, Derek Boshier is best known for his paintings, which helped to establish the British Pop-Art movement in the 1960s. He studied at the Yeovil College of Art in Somerset, England, before attending the Royal College of Art in London alongside David Hockney, Allen Jones and R.B. Kitak, among others. Boshier’s graphic work found immense popularity among music groups such as The Clash and David Bowie, helping to bring the artist’s work to a wider audience. Though he is best known for his paintings, Boshier is not one to be limited by a medium, having worked in metal, neon and plastic as well as with books and film. He taught at Central School of Art and Design in London in the early 1970s, where he met then-student John Mellor (later known as Joe Strummer, of The Clash). Boshier has exhibited in several prominent international museums and galleries, including London’s National Portrait Gallery and Paris’ Galerie du Centre, as well as dozens of institutions throughout the United States. Boshier currently resides in Los Angeles, California, where he teaches drawing part-time at UCLA’s School of Arts and continues to create relevant, politically-charged works. Eleanor Wood Born in London, England, Eleanor Wood is best known for her minimalist paintings. She studied at the Hornsey School of Art in London, followed by The Winchester School of Art in Winchester, where she received a Bachelor’s degree with Honors in Fine Art, and the Chelsea School of Art in London, where she received a Master of Arts in painting. Wood has had several solo exhibitions in California and the United Kingdom and has participated in dozens of group shows both in the United States and internationally. The artist currently splits her time between Central California and Norfolk, England. Gordon Senior Born in Norfolk, England, Gordon Senior is best known for his sculptural work, which addresses humans’ relationships to nature through the use of materials such as wood, alabaster, bronze and cement. He studied at the Wakefield College of Art, Leeds College of Art, and Goldsmiths College at London University. The artist has had several exhibitions throughout California and the UK and has participated in group shows both nationally and internationally. Currently, he splits his time between Central California and Norfolk, England. Graham Moore Born in London, England, Graham Moore is best known for his graphic, music-themed collages which utilize pop culture imagery. He studied at the Wimbledon School of Art and the East Ham College of Technology in London, before following his chosen creative career path of graphic design and art direction to the United States. Moore has participated in several group exhibitions as well as two solo shows and has designed work for clients including: Neiman Marcus, Pier 1 Imports, JC Penney, USC School of Social Work, Art Center College of Design, Creative Domain, The Cimarron Group, SRC Advertising, Teleflora, Asian Ceramics, Wise USA, Samsung Records, Quango and Resonance Records. He has taught at several prominent California arts institutions, including: Art Center College of Design, Woodbury University, The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, UCLA Extension and the Art Institute in North Hollywood. Moore currently resides in Los Angeles, California. James Scott Born in Wells, England, James Scott is best known for his work in film and both abstract and narrative painting. He studied painting and theater design at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. The success of his first film, The Rocking Horse, led to an opportunity to work with Tony Richardson, allowing the artist to direct his first feature at the age of 21. Scott won an Academy Award in 1983 for his film, A Shocking Accident, based on the short story by Graham Greene. In 1989, Scott relocated to California following the passing of his father, wherein he decided to focus again on drawing and painting. The landscape of Los Angeles has provided a wealth of inspiration for the artist, and he continues to live in LA while exhibiting in England, Los Angeles and New York. Jane Callister Born on the Isle of Man in the United Kingdom, Jane Callister is best known for her abstract paintings, which explore the consequences of action and the movement of paint itself. She received a Bachelor of Arts with honors from the Cheltenham School of Art in England, a Master of Arts from the University of Idaho, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Callister has exhibited at the Albright Knox Museum in Buffalo, New York, the Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design in Santa Monica, the Laguna Art Museum and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona. She was included in the First Prague Biennial at the Veletrizni Palace in Prague as well as the 2006 California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach. She has been featured in notable publications such as Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting, published by Phaidon Press and Abstract Painting: Techniques and Concepts by Watson & Guptil. In LA Artland: Contemporary Art from Los Angeles, published by London’s Blackdog Press, she is recognized as one of the top California artists alongside Ed Ruscha, Paul McCarthy, and Raymond Pettibone. Callister currently resides in Goleta, California. Jeremy Kidd British-born, L.A. based Jeremy Kidd is best known for his digital photography, which combines up to 100 long exposure photographs into a single piece of art, as a more cohesive way of expressing the overall picture. His artwork presents a condensed vision of multiple photographs as a metaphor for repeated perceptual glances. Kidd received his Bachelor of Fine Art and Sculpture at Du Monfort University in Leicester, England. His work has been shown throughout the United States and the United Kingdom. The artist currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Jon Measures Born in Lilbourne, Northamptonshire, England, Jon Measures is best known for his mixed-media paintings; the pieces shown at MOAH, which represent a personal and psychological journey are a distinct departure from the concepts which informed his previous body of work. Measures obtained his degree from the Falmouth School of Art in England, after which has enjoyed a successful career as a graphic designer, illustrator and educator. Recently, Measures has decided to focus his attention on fine art, exhibiting extensively while developing his own approach to making mixed media which combines multiple views of Los Angeles and other urban areas, slicing and dicing bits of the city’s rich fabric together. The artist currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Kate Savage Born in Sussex, England, Kate Savage is best known for her paintings, sculpture and works on paper, which deal with folktales as well as the artist’s personal history. She studied at Parsons School of Design in New York and Paris before completing her Master of Fine Arts with honors at California State University, Long Beach. Savage’s work has been exhibited in several galleries, both nationally and internationally, including: Curve Line Space, Gallery 825, Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Haus Gallery, L.A.C.E. (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions), and the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Her work has been written about in Artweek, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and various other publications. The artist currently resides in Mar Vista, California. Max Presneill Born in London, England, Max Presneill is an artist and curator, best known for his abstract paintings, which he uses as a means to explore multiple avenues of inquiry simultaneously. As an artist, Presneill addresses existential questions, masculine codes and an awareness of presence and mortality in his work. He received a Master of Fine Arts from California State University, Fullerton. Presneill has exhibited throughout the world, including New York, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Istanbul, Sydney, Guanzhoe and Tokyo. His work has been shown at several art fairs including The Armory Show and the NYC and Miami Projects; it was included in the Istanbul Biennial and the Yokohoma Triennial and has been exhibited in several museums, including the Ucity Art Museum in Guanzhou, China, the Van Abbemuseum and the Hudson Museum in The Netherlands, and the Mappin Museum in the UK. Says the artist of his work, “When I die, my paintings are what will remain. They contain my memories, hopes and dreams. An identity of sorts and the drive towards cognitive meaning, all within the political possibilities of painting.” Presneill currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Nathaniel Mellors Born in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England, Nathaniel Mellors is best known for his video and installation work. He studied at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art at Oxford, the Royal College of Art and Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. Mellors also plays bass in the alt-rock group Skill 7 Stamina12 and is an accomplished musician, having released tracks with bands such as Toilet, God in Hackney and Mysterious Horse. As an artist, he has exhibited all over the world in museums and galleries such as: The Box, Los Angeles, Stiger van Doesburg, Amsterdam, Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin, Art: Concept, Paris, The View, Switzerland, UCLA’s Hammer Museum, Galway Arts Centre, Ireland, the Baltimore Museum of Art, Monitor, Rome, Malmo Konsthall, Sweden, Salle de Bains, London, Matt’s Gallery, London, I.C.A., London, Monterhermoso, Spain, Lombard-Freid Projects, New York, South London Gallery and The Collective, Edinburgh. Mellors currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Philip Argent Born in Southend-on-Sea, Sussex, England, Philip Argent is best known for his paintings, which marry the influence of technology in the digital age to the practice of hard-edge abstraction. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts from the Cheltenham School of Art in England, Master of Arts from the University of Idaho and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Widely credited with bringing Los Angeles painting back into the spotlight in the early 2000’s, Argent has had several solo exhibitions at numerous museums and galleries, including: Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, Galerie Jette Rudolph, Berlin, Tate, New York City and Post Los Angeles. An artist whose work is truly internationally renowned, Argent has shown in cities such as: Dusseldorf, Germany, Kwangui, Korea, Graz, Austria, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Turin, Italy and Zurich, Switzerland. Currently, Argent lives and works in Santa Monica, California. Philip Vaughan Born in Dorset, England, Philip Vaughan is perhaps best known for his large-scale neon sculptures, though he also works extensively in drawing and painting. He studied at Brighton College, Cambridge University and the Chelsea School of Art. Vaughan has installed sculptures in California and Japan as well as throughout United Kingdom, including his famous Hayward Tower, which sits atop the South Bank’s Hayward Gallery in London. Says the artist of his work, “Despite the apparent deliberate and planned nature of my sculptural end products, the origin of all my work is often a mystery to me. It may be years before I become aware of the connection between a part of my work and its origin. This is one of the pleasures of being an artist. There are things that are not always explainable, both within the individual and in history. At heart, life and art are still mysterious.” Vaughan currently resides in Altadena, California. Rhea O’Neill Born in Reading, United Kingdom, Rhea O’Neill is best known for her color-focused figurative and landscape oil paintings. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts with first class honors from the University of Reading and a Master of Arts in painting from the Wimbledon College of Art. The artist has work in the United Kingdom Government Art Collection and has exhibited both nationally and internationally at numerous museums and galleries, including: Goethe University, Frankfurt, National Center of Performing Arts, Beijing, Lush, Hamptons, Rollo Contemporary Art, Westminster, Long and Ryle Gallery, London and Rollo Contemporary Art, London. O’Neill currently resides in Scott’s Valley, California. Roni Stretch Born in St.Helens, Merseyside, England, Roni Stretch is best known for having pioneered the dichromatic process, exploring photorealistic under-paintings that emerge ghost-like from a void of color. He studied at St. Helens College of Art and Design. Stretch has been exhibited throughout California including shows at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art at the Geffen Contemporary Museum, the Westmont Museum of Art in Santa Barbara and the Cooperstown Museum in New York. His work has recently been included in the permanent collections of the Pasadena Museum of California Art, the Museum of California Design, the Cooperstown Museum in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Sarah Danays British-born artist Sarah Danays is best known for her synthesis of sculpture and photography, which is inspired by gesture and antiquity, particularly fragments of broken sculptures. She obtained a joint honors degree in fine art and art history from Camberwell College of Arts (now part of University of the Arts, London), a Master of Arts in Textiles as Contemporary Art Practice from Goldsmith’s, University of London, and studied Stone Carving for Contemporary Sculptors at City and Guilds, London. In 2008, she was shortlisted in Le Prix de la Sculpture Noilly Prat as one of the UK’s top five emerging sculptors. Danays has exhibited internationally and her work is in public and private collections in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Europe. She currently works out of studios in Los Angeles, Tuscany and the United Kingdom. Shiva Aliabadi Born in London, England, Shiva Aliabadi is best known for her sculptural, mixed-media relief paintings, which are reminiscent of assemblage work. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts in English from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, a Master of Arts in English from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts and a Master of Fine Arts from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California. Aliabadi has held several residencies and won awards for her work throughout the United States, and has exhibited extensively in museums and galleries, such as: Fine Arts Complex 1101, Tempe, Arizona, Proxy Gallery, Los Angeles, The Gamble House, Pasadena, Elephant Art Space, Los Angeles, University of Buffalo Art Gallery, New York, Yokohama-Tokyo-Los Angeles Triennial, Yokohama, Japan, The Institute of Jamais Vu, London, Studio 17, San Francisco, Torrance Art Museum, California, and The Vortex Gallery, Los Angeles. The artist currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Siobhan McClure Born in Margate, England, Siobhan McClure is best known for her narrative works which feature children rendered in paint and graphite. She obtained a Master of Fine Arts from California State University, Long Beach. In her work, the artist seeks to bear witness to the degradation of the environment, the rise of displaced populations and the impact of today’s consumption on future children. McClure has had solo exhibitions at several galleries throughout Los Angeles, including: Richard Heller Gallery, Laura Schlesinger Gallery and Jan Baum Gallery. She has also participated in numerous group shows at the Torrance Art Museum, Irvine Fine Art Center Angel’s Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro, California, and the Center for Contemporary Art in Sacramento. She was featured in New American Paintings no.97 and was a finalist in the 2011 Google Invitational for Site Specific Projects in Venice, California. Her work has been reviewed in The Huffington Post and the Los Angeles Times. McClure currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Trevor Norris Born in Hertfordshire, England, Trevor Norris is best known for his abstract paintings. He obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts with honors from the Central School of Art in London and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has over 20 years of experience teaching art and design at institutions such as the University of Southern California (USC), California State University, San Bernardino and Orange Coast Community College. He has curated extensively at Orange Coast College, Long Beach City College, College of the Canyons, Muzeumm, Los Angeles and USC’s Fischer Art Museum. Norris has participated in several group and solo shows at museums and galleries such as: Jan Baun Gallery, Los Angeles, Vita Art Center, Ventura, Wallspace Gallery, Los Angeles, Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan, the LA International Art Fair, the Chicago International Art Fair, LACMA Rental Gallery, Los Angeles, and Victory Contemporary Gallery in Los Angeles. Norris currently resides Los Angeles, California. November 19, 2016 - January 22, 2017 Back to list

Welcome Exhibiting Artists to the Lancaster Museum of Art and History On this page you will find everything you need to ensure your exhibition runs smoothly. The exhibiting artist process is composed of 3 main sections and a frequently asked question section. Please complete all 3 sections by the date listed in the welcome email to make certain that the museum has everything needed to promote and exhibit your artwork. Artist Bio STEP 1 First, provide us with general contact info STEP 2 Artwork Info Second, provide us with an artist statement/biography and information about your body of works STEP 3 Images Third, provide us with high-resolution images that best represent the work being exhibited This is where you can find the answer to questions that may arise, as well as a staff directory SUPPLEMENTAL FAQ Artist Info Let's start with you. 1 Artwork Statement 2 Tell us about this body of work. Let's see your work. 3 Images FAQ ? That's it! Frequently Asked Questions Will MOAH cover shipping costs for my artwork? The museum covers transportation within a 100 mile radius of the facility. How does MOAH handle insurance of my artwork? The museum insures all artwork wall-to-wall ONLY within the facility and when being transported by MOAH staff. The museum DOES NOT insure artwork during transport when transported by third party delivery service. Will the museum sell my artwork during the exhibition? The museum does not sell artwork, unless it is cataloged as a consignment item within the Vault Store. For more information on how to get an item in our store, please ask one of our staff members. Does MOAH reimburse artists for materials or framing? No, materials, delivery (outside of 100 mile radius) or framing are to be acquired at the artist's discretion and expense, the museum will not reimburse for those items. Can I choose where my artwork will be displayed at MOAH? Unless it is a site specific installation, you will not choose the location inside the museum, but will be chosen by the curators. More questions? We're here to help! Robert Benitez Curatorial Contact for questions and information regarding curatorial inquiries and operations. rbenitez@cityoflancasterca.org Carlos Chavez Operations Contact for questions and information regarding art transportation, care, and installation. cchavez@cityoflancasterca.org Emily Krebs Registration Contact for questions and information regarding loan documents and other legal info. moahregistrar@cityoflancasterca.org Jenni Williams Education Contact for questions and information regarding educational programs and tours at MOAH. moaheducation@cityoflancasterca.org Heber Rodriguez Curatorial Contact for questions and information regarding curatorial inquiries and operations. hrodriguez@cityoflancasterca.org Cynthia Alvarado MOAH:CEDAR Contact for questions and information regarding exhibitions at the MOAH:CEDAR moahcedar@cityoflancasterca.org Jaushua Rombaoa Engagement Contact for questions and information regarding artist statements/biography, and engagement events. moahengagement@cityoflancasterca.org Stepfanie Aguilar Marketing & Creative Contact for questions and information regarding images, audio/visual, and other marketing materials. moahmarketing@cityoflancasterca.org

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 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 The Rule of Progress Rob Grad Southern California native, Rob Grad, is known for his introspective, yet bold 3D collages, sculptures, writing, and music. His heavily layered visuals contrast photographic vignettes of natural and urban environments, with drawing, painting, and his words–an aesthetic largely shaped by his two decades living in Venice Beach, CA. Grad’s approach to using Joshua Trees in his work is largely metaphorical. He references a story of Mormons naming the trees, where they felt the branches were reaching to heaven. This work was inspired by a poem Grad wrote about progress, and how it can’t be measured with a line on a graph. He writes, “it’s a flailing, fussy, slobbery glob.” In this image, Grad is posing the question, what actually is “progress?” What is the benefit? And what is the cost? Lines and shapes move in and around the branches, suggesting how close our relationship is with our environment, even at great distances apart. But it is only the tree that touches the ground and has the ability to find water for nourishment in the barren landscape. The idea of nourishment can also be seen as a metaphor here, for nourishing our desires and our thirst for a better life and a better tomorrow. Is that in fact, what we are creating? Can society as a whole actually learn and grow from its missteps? Grad’s work addresses the existential issues of desire and fulfillment in a society inundated by technology, social media, and politics. His new work is increasingly influenced by his early career as a musician when he was signed to RCA records and appeared on MTV not long after graduating high school. He is a product of the “MTV generation,” which found its identity through a shared global experience before the invention of social media. It was a generation that invented itself as it went along. This ethos is a cornerstone of Grad’s studio practice, always pushing himself into new and uncomfortable territory in an effort to extract the extraordinary from the mundane. He has shown in museums, galleries, and art fairs from Basel to Miami, and Los Angeles. Recent exhibitions include the Museum of Art and History in Lancaster, CA, and the Torrance Art Museum in Torrance, CA. He has commissioned work in the San Francisco airport, Hudson Pacific Properties, El Rancho Properties, the Zildjian corporate offices in Boston and Los Angeles, LA’s Griffin Athletic Club, and his work is held in private collections. Rob gave a TEDx Talk in Culver City, CA about authenticity in art and following the internal muse, and participated in a video project for TikTok China. He also writes a blog about his art practice called “Creativesphere,” and speaks to students in schools about the importance of learning to think creatively not only in art but to solve problems in today’s culture and society. January - June 2023 Back to list

Up Hysteria Cudra Clover Silk painter and multimedia artist, Cudra Clover, is currently working on her Biomorphic Abstraction collection; the term "biomorphic" refers to symbolic structures or images that evoke naturally occurring forms such as plants, organisms, and body parts. Clover describes her work as creating new worlds on a microcosmic level. Mixing science and art, she researches pandemics, viruses, water, genetics, and plant cells. Clover creates her biologically inspired silk painting using camera technology, microscopes, projectors, biologists, and scientific photo research in her artistic method. Clover's silks paintings are a time-consuming and detailed process that she views as a meditative practice on living things, both real and imagined. Clover, in this process, uses the Japanese fabric dyeing technique, rozome, and elements of the Indonesian method of wax-resist dyeing, batik. She also incorporates aspects of French Serti, a silk painting method in which painters outline their designs with gutta or water-based resistance. In creating biomorphic abstract art, Clover attempts to provoke viewers to reflect on the natural world invisible to the naked eye and the overstimulation of technology in our everyday lives. June 5 – September 5, 2021 Back to list