< Return to Exhibitions Spring 2013 Gary Lang: Whim Wham Jorg Dubin: My Facebook Friends Guillermo Bert: The Bar Code Series Susan Sironi: Altered Books Gary Lang Shepard Fairey These Sunsets Are To Die For Thomas McGovern Jorg Dubin Guillermo Bert The Barcode Series Danial Nord Youtopia Susan Sironi Altered Books Learn More March 16 - May 5, 2013 Thomas McGovern: Sign Language, Notes from the High Desert Danial Nord: Youtopia March 16 - April 29, 2013 March 16 - May 11, 2013 Signs and Symbols: From Street Art to High Art Dubin Signs Bert Nord McGovern Lang Signs and Symbols: From Street Art to High Art Signs and Symbols: From Street Art to High Art showcases internationally renowned and groundbreaking works by: Keith Haring, Banksy, Barry McGee, Heretic, Cryptik, David P. Flores, Shepard Fairey, Robbie Conal and MearOne. Now a global practice, the artists in this exhibition span a geographic range from Los Angeles to New York and London and pioneered the street art movement by using the urban matrix as their canvas. They continue to create guerilla works of art using stickers, murals, paint, templates, wheat paste, and video projections to transform the dialogue about where art may or may not be placed and sanctioned. Collectively, the artists are master editors, using only the most relevant signs, symbols and materials to achieve the greatest visual impact in a short period of time. They question the commercialization of art by changing the materials they employ and selecting alternative places in which their works appear. The term street art is used to distinguish between two opposites: government and corporate sponsored public art works and the unsanctioned tagging of territorial graffiti. The practice is a form of visual activism by artists who often feel disenfranchised by the codification and standards of art-making in the public realm. Disenfranchisement is a strong motivator and the street artists represented here have revolutionized the way public space is utilized to convey socio-political messages to everyday people who may not frequent museums and galleries. The artwork is eventually taken out of its local context by commercial galleries and museums, the very institutions many artists intend to avoid. Other street artists welcome the influx of their work in the commercial realm, embracing it as an opportunity for their messages to reach larger audiences. Over the last decade, the street art movement gained considerable notoriety with the public through widespread acclaim for the element of surprise. As a new work of art appeared on the street overnight, neighbors and communities either relished or fought against the phenomena, generating a vibrant social currency that fuels the artists. Most street artists are working for the people and are driven by the effect of mobilizing the community into action. Gary Lang: Whim Wham The Lancaster Museum of Art and History presents Gary Lang: Whim Wham an intimate selection of Lang’s acclaimed circle paintings accompanied by his never before seen word paintings. The two bodies of work may at first appear unrelated, yet they are inextricably linked by a union of opposites and similarities—both through the process in which they are created and in Lang’s quest for reconciling the space between beauty and pain in contemporary times. Lang began working on his minimalist circle paintings in the 1980’s and quickly became internationally renowned for his ability to engender a physical connection to the sublime through his radiating color combinations. When viewed from a distance, his paintings propel the viewer into an unrelenting optical experience that transcends everyday concerns. The colors blend and shift, deepen and soften, and awaken and pulsate in conversation with one another, taking the viewer on a phenomenological joy ride. As one moves closer to the work, the artist’s hand—and his remarkable affection for the materiality of paint—is revealed. In the 1970’s, prior to the birth of his circle paintings, Lang had sustained a quiet practice of writing text on paper and painting words in books that he positioned on his paint mixing tables. He eventually began making word paintings in concert with his large canvasses. On the surface, the word paintings function as an immediate repository for the excess pigment left over from his monumental canvasses: he simply moves from the canvas to the paper to “clean” the brush. Lang’s improvisational cleansing process ultimately yields words and phrases that expose his deeply poetic response to the concepts of truth, religion, power and tragedy. Lang has methodically practiced this private ritual since the bombing of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Just days before 9 -11, Lang moved his family from their New York City loft—where the World Trade Center towers were visible from the kitchen window—to Southern California, where Lang was born. Lang expresses that this event turned him toward words “in an effort to understand how they are used, abused, and manipulated by agenda and temper as well as to serve the heart.” He has equally found that he associates the words "real" and "true” with the momentary quality of painting in the here and now. Exhibited together for the first time, Gary Lang: Whim Wham invites the viewer to witness the fruits of Lang’s private ritual, sparking an adventure among color-saturated objects that assist us in transcending the everyday to traversing the intellectual pursuit of words, asking of us to reconcile the beauty and mystery of life with the tragedy of the human condition. Jorg Dubin: My Facebook Friends Jorg Dubin: My Facebook Friends is a contemporary exploration of identity through the fragmented lens of social media. Dubin’s portraits are painted directly from his Facebook friends’ profile pictures, many of whom the artist has never met or whom mostly remain unknown to him. The power of the work emerges from the identity fragmentation that occurs in the virtual world, and is strengthened by the clues into the visage of social media that Dubin provides the viewer. By turning unknown virtual “friends” into his painted subjects, he delivers small treasures from which to begin questioning the motives of identity in the digital age. Dubin, a skilled painter, departed from his classical, representational training and has become well regarded for his expressive explorations of the human condition. His large figurative paintings depict the fragility of human physicality: many of his subjects have undergone physical harm through illness or misfortune or simply through the choices made in life. Dubin explores these realities by blanketing his subjects in oily, acerbic painterly color and roots them in surreal and often grotesque scenes. These larger works are generous visual narratives, whereas his small Facebook oil sketches convey only fragments such as an eye, nose or mouth. These singular sketches ask of us to fill in the gaps, prompting one to contemplate the concept of superficiality through the accumulation of friends. The installation as a whole creates an entirely new friend: one that questions our desire to be needed, to be seen, to be heard and investigates how social media has changed human interaction and communication. Dubin lives and works in Laguna Beach, California. He studied at the Art Institute of Southern California and is a lecturer at Laguna College of Art and Design. Dubin shows extensively in the region, with several solo and group shows at Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach; Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman University, Orange, CA; and Blue Gallery, Kansas City, MO among many others. His work is widely published in art journals and magazines including: ArtScene Magazine, Artillery Magazine, Orange County Register, Coast Magazine, Sacramento Bee and Riviera Magazine. Guillermo Bert: The Bar Code Series Chilean artist Guillermo Bert has long been fascinated with the concept of encrypting messages, language and ideas beneath the “skin” of his artwork. He embeds this concept by incorporating contemporary bar codes with Inca, Maya, and Mapuche religious icons, each rendered in gold, thereby creating hybrid relics and proposing a new mythology. His panels are engraved and carved, much like the stonework of ancient civilizations. This process of engraving and encoding allows Bert to question the price of core values such as democracy and justice, while blurring the lines between culture and commodities. Using the bar code—the quintessential symbol of consumerism and branding as a form of contemporary conquest—Bert provides a critical comment on the effects of globalization and the western consumerist model. Bert lives and works in Los Angeles and shows extensively in the United States and South America, including the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach CA, the San Diego Museum of Art in San Diego CA, the Fowler Museum at UCLA, the Museum of Tolerance and the Architectural Design Museum both in Los Angeles, and the Pasadena Museum of California Art. He is the recipient of many awards and grants and has been commissioned to create a number of public art works. Susan Sironi: Altered Books Los Angeles based artist Susan Sironi received her BFA from California State University, Long Beach and studied color still photography at Orange Coast College. Her early work in urban photography and assemblage lead to her collecting vintage materials with a focus on vintage books. Since 2003 she has used vintage books to express the inconsistencies and frustrations of a world that clings to past conventions while striving for future ideals. Her first altered books were text only and were meticulously cut page-by-page. The advent of the Internet provided Sironi with the ability to acquire multiple copies of books while scanning technology allowed for the precise cutting of entire books. This blending of old and new technologies is central to Sironi’s approach: each book promotes an alternative reading of the accepted norms and conventions of the past. By altering the information the viewer sees, Sironi transforms the books into new visual and conceptual forms while retaining clues from their former identity and history. Exhibiting primarily in Los Angeles, Sironi's work has also been shown at the Laguna Museum of Art and the Carpenter Center at Harvard University, MA. She is represented by Offramp Gallery in Pasadena. Thomas McGovern: Sign Language, Notes from the High Desert Sign Language, Notes from the High Desert showcases the distinguished work of Southern California photographer Thomas McGovern. McGovern’s new work was made specifically for and about the Antelope Valley and is part of a larger documentary project called Vital Signs. The Vital Signs series documents hand-painted signs and murals throughout the Inland Empire region of Southern California, starting with the City of San Bernardino. The great Mexican muralist tradition has an obvious influence in the region, but these signs and murals also suggest the economics of a recovering city where immigrants and established locals alike set up shop and try to provide for themselves and their communities. For his Sign Language, Notes from the High Desert project, McGovern expanded his range to include the Antelope Valley, a place recovering from similar economic pressures as San Bernardino and other rural communities throughout the country. With the Antelope Valley’s close proximity to Los Angeles and the proliferation of high definition billboards lining the ubiquitous eight-lane highways in our region, McGovern turned his lens toward the hand painted signs, murals and advertisements that punctuate our rural, two-lane highway landscape. McGovern provides a window into the minutia that is often taken for granted among the larger mass of “freeway culture” in the area. The photographs piece together fragments of the Antelope Valley’s vernacular style of architecture with the hand painted signs that are being replaced by homogenous strip malls and master planned communities. Many of the signs are deteriorating or were painted in a by-gone era, indicating how the valley is changing over time. Thomas McGovern is Professor of Art at California State University San Bernardino. He exhibits widely in California, New York and Germany and is represented in distinguished collections such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Brooklyn Museum of Art; Baltimore Museum of Art; Library of Congress; Museum Fur Photographie; Museum of the City of New York and The New Museum, New York among others. Danial Nord: Youtopia Danial Nord is an interdisciplinary artist who reinterprets the familiar language and trappings of mass communication. Nord’s installations draw from his accomplishments as an award winning designer-animator in the entertainment industry, as an internationally-based fashion designer, and as a scenic and prop artist for film, television and theater. Nord’s humorous new digital video Youtopia pokes fun at electronic communication and how automated search engines control the information we obtain. The video is based on an email he received with a link to a New York Times article titled: Guggenheim and YouTube Seek Budding Video Artists. Nord created virtual assistants to investigate the article. As the automated inquiries progress over time, they are eventually skewed by database hierarchies and software glitches, which produce amusing, convoluted associations and misguided conclusions. Youtopia underscores the current state of affairs in our quick-to-click culture. Nord earned his BFA from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and Rome, Italy. He continued with postgraduate studies in communication technologies and media at the School of Visual Arts and the NYU Center for Digital Multimedia in New York. Nord has exhibited his work in the US and abroad at World Expo 2010, Shanghai, China, Stadsmuseum Ghent, Belgium, and in New York at Freight + Volume and ISE Cultural Foundation. Nord lives, works and exhibits widely in Los Angeles including at California Museum of Photography, Fringe Exhibitions, HAUS, Pacific Design Center, and the City of L.A. Municipal Art Gallery. His work has been covered by the LA Times, LA Weekly, Artweek, Afterimage, and NPR. Sironi View or Download the Spring 2013 Exhibition Catalog by clicking on the cover image or here.

A critique of these large-scale industrial complexes a the damaging processes of unsustainable agricultural production Up Citrus Series David Koeth A critique of these large-scale industrial complexes a the damaging processes of unsustainable agricultural production Describing himself as restless and eclectic, David Koeth works with citrus peels, paint, coffee, and graphic design. His artworks reflect humanity's long-fought struggle with pollution and humanity’s attempt to combat the destruction of Earth's natural resources and living species. As a self proclaimed capitalist, Koeth’s acquisitive tendencies have led him to amass a collection of various objects that eventually find their way into his artistic practice. Additionally, Koeth has created works relevant to endangered species, concepts of recycling, and negatively impactful industrial processes. Koeth’s Citrus Series on view critiques of these large-scale industrial complexes, most directly, the damaging processes of unsustainable agricultural production. June 5 – September 5, 2021 Back to list

CrossWINDS focuses on the local phenomenon of wind including the history and prevalence of wind power in the region and kinetic artists who put wind at the center of their practice. The project is designed to teach young people to become knowledgeable about the powerful local resource in order to create kinetic works of art. Student artist teams will co-create models of kinetic sculpture based on a curriculum co-written by the project partners. The curriculum is replicable and adaptable in schools across the High Desert and beyond. The works of art designed and generated by the students is a collaborative effort among numerous departments: Math, Science, English, Performing Arts, Foreign Language, Special Education, Physical Education, Social Science and Visual Art. The students in each department will be guided to gather data regarding wind and its impact on the environment. They will create models/small functioning kinetic sculptures inspired by the data and the designs of windmills, wind chimes, turbines and other kinetic art. In accordance with the multi-disciplinary mission of the Green MOAH Initiative, numerous departments are joining the project. The works of art are created by students through a collaborative effort among core departments such as Visual and Performing Arts, Math and Science. Additional departments including English, Foreign Language, Special Education, Physical Education, Social Science and more have been encouraged to get involved in complementary projects. The students in the core departments are guided to gather data regarding wind and its impact on the environment and the diverse array of turbine designs that harness wind for renewable energy. Students are creating functioning kinetic sculptures inspired by the data and the designs of windmills, wind chimes, turbines and other kinetic art. The projects teach students to innovate, communicate and collaborate, problem solve, think outside of the box, engage in an immersive multi-disciplinary creative process and learn how to work with new and recycled materials. Ultimately, the sculptures will generate power from the wind to illuminate LED strips incorporated into the work. The sculptures were tested for power levels by physics students and are used to raise public awareness about wind as an artful renewable resource. The sculptures will be exhibited at each partnering high school, MOAH and other locations and events in the community. Photography and film students are collaborating on a documentary of the creative process and creating posters to further educate the community about the project. Show More Project Photo Documentation Provided By : Edwin R. Vasquez

1. SpaceShipOne is an experimental air-launched, rocket-powered aircraft manufactured by Scaled Composites that has a hybrid rocket motor allowing it to be capable of sub-orbital spaceflight 2. Map of Palmdale 3. The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is an American long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, which has continued to provide support and upgrades. It has been operated by the United States Air Force since the 1950s •SpaceShipOne •Aerial Map of Palmdale (West to East) •B-52 Stratofortress 1/1 1. SpaceShipOne Photographic Print 2020.999.05 MOAH Digital Collection Gift of Edwards Air Force Base (AFFTC-HO) Scan the QR Code for more information 2. Aerial Map of Palmdale (West to East) Photographic Print 2019.19.04 MOAH Permanent Collection Gift of Edwards Air Force Base (AFFTC-HO) Scan the QR Code for more information” 3. B-52 Stratofortress, c. 1960 Photographic Print 2012.999.56.02 MOAH Permanent Collection Gift of Edwards Air Force Base (AFFTC-HO) 1. SpaceShipOne is an experimental air-launched, rocket-powered aircraft manufactured by Scaled Composites that has a hybrid rocket motor allowing it to be capable of sub-orbital spaceflight 2. Map of Palmdale 3. The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is an American long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, which has continued to provide support and upgrades. It has been operated by the United States Air Force since the 1950s

MOC (My Own City) < Back Previous Susan Feldman MOC (My Own City) Susan Feldman’s artistic practice centers around architecture and the idea of home, primarily working with found wood and other mixed media. Her art practice is often inspired by her meditation practices and contextualizes this process through the physical act of “rising up.” Her works include wall art, sculpture, and installation, where she utilizes different textures, colors, materials, and layering. Through her meditative process, Feldman creates architectural reverie that defies conventional utilitarian structures. Completed in 2019, MOC (My Own City) is a site-specific, mixed-media installation of 50 miniature structures showcasing Feldman’s whimsical architectural fantasy. Her utopia includes buildings and structures like a coffee house, a meditation center, a funhouse, and an art museum, among others. All the businesses and properties within MOC are all establishments that she envisions for her idealistic city. Like much of her earlier work, her city is comprised of items from her personal belongings, melding ideas of both the past and the present creating a unique embodiment of belonging, freedom of expression, and inclusion. Next

Om Baboolall < Back Taking It All In By Om Baboolall From the day I can first sprout, I knew it was gonna be an interesting one. I can still see the remains of my ancestors all around me. Well, the ones they forgot to pick up. These new guys were always the lazy type. When the little one used the pool as a beach, her little plastic shovel remains to be found in her secret spot behind the slide. She used to barely step over the rock to get to her secret place, but now it's just like any other rock, nothing special. The boy was always big enough to step over the rocks, but now he's climbing to the top like it was never an issue. Sometimes I see him in the backyard late at night huffing and puffing when the rest of the house is asleep. I was there when the little girl snuck in some boy, laid down, and watched the stars till the sun came up. I hope she realizes he's texting "zoe" and not just scrolling Instagram. He sprinted out of there when he realized someone was awake in the house. I was in anguish when the little girl almost got caught; she doesn't deserve it. I hardly ever see the people who paid for the house. I overheard their conversations and that they're too busy to go in the pool or go in the backyard, or go on the swing and sit around the fire, or reminisce about the old apartment while sipping their drinks. I know these people won't be here for long. You always get that feeling about the owners when they first move in. Are they here for a long time or just because the brochure looked nice? These guys are just like the rest of them. I can't complain. I get watered every now and then. I mean, I'm next to the peppy rose bushes. I get whatever they don't drink. I wonder what the subsequent owners are going to be like. Are they gonna spend their nights hard at work or get drunk and throw up over by daffodils? Even better, maybe these new owners will fight back if the next-door neighbors try to bully them. The last time that happened, the cops were called. I hope that we can have an owner who cares about the house more than the rest of these mediocre families one day. Word gets out quick around here. Someone heard the front yard talking about getting a new pond. That's one thing nice these guys have decided to do. Who knows, maybe they can fix up the one back here too. Perhaps by then, my time will come. Maybe by then, I can have an owner that waters me first instead of just getting runoff. Until that time comes, I'll just be waiting here with nothing to do but take it all in. Previous Next

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

Up Artist As Subject Various Artists Rebecca Campbell Andrew Frieder Kent Anderson Butler Eric Minh Swenson Jane Szabo Nataša Prosenc Stearns https://vimeo.com/166919424 Rebecca Campbell: The Potato Eaters Rebecca Campbell is a figurative artist, whose work focuses on themes associated with human existence in contemporary society. Embracing both realism and abstraction, Campbell makes paintings, drawings and sculptures that frequently revolve around the day-to-day lives of average people, to whom she lends a heroic quality. Campbell’s new series of work, entitled The Potato Eaters , examine aspects of family and cultural history, memory, documentation and nostalgia. The title is taken from Vincent van Gogh's 1885 masterpiece that portrays Dutch peasants gathered at a meager meal. As in van Gogh’s celebrated work that addresses themes of noble human existence and connection to the land, Campbell references her family history and relatives who lived in Idaho during the early and mid-twentieth century. The series includes paintings that convey disappearing rural and sub-urban landscapes, as well as figurative works inspired by old black and white photographs. In addition, Campbell both honors and reflects upon oft-ignored domestic activities, such as canning and cleaning, through several sculpture installations. Campbell earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting from the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Oregon in 1994, and Master of Fine Arts in painting and drawing from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2001. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at the Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona; the Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Winter Park, Florida; the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York; The Portland Art Museum, Oregon; the Central Utah Arts Center and Brigham Young University, Utah; the UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and L.A. Louver, Venice, CA, among others. Campbell has taught at Art Center College of Design, Claremont Graduate University and Vermont College of Fine Art, and is currently assistant professor at California State University, Fullerton. Rebecca Campbell lives and works in Los Angeles. https://vimeo.com/162741209 Andrew Frieder: Waiting for Divine Inspiration On the western edge of the Mojave Desert, Lancaster is not a town known for its art scene, but it is where Andrew Frieder spent his most productive years as an artist, working day and night for several decades to produce a vast body of work in a variety of mediums. Andrew frequently depicted scenes from classical mythology and the Old Testament scriptures with which he was so conversant: figures wrestling with serpents, communing with skulls and struggling with rocks, as well as hybrid beasts of his own design. A gentle and subtle coloration of soft pastel and muted earth tones distinguishes the work, sometimes scrawled upon with text (“Was it worth it? Vanquishing the serpent: Can it be done?”) and frequently pierced, perforated, sewn, glued and otherwise driven into aesthetic submission, resulting in a strangely harmonious combination of the visceral and meticulous. Andrew had an extraordinary sense of design all his own. He rebuilt and repaired several industrial sewing machines, some mechanically modified to be foot-treadle powered, with which he sewed intricate cotton quilts and constructed his own jaunty hats – ‘chapeaux’, as he called them. He was a licensed barber. A hobbyist cobbler, he made and repaired shoes. An incessant tinkerer who continually re-purposed every manner of objects, he would grind, weld and machine his own customized tools, and myriad objects both sculptural and practical. Andrew had found a measure of peace with whatever impression the world may have taken of him, cutting a unique figure as he rolled his customized cart to source materials such as scrap iron and lumber for his projects, discovered everywhere from alleyways to yard sales, thrift shops and scrapyards. As a teenager, Andrew spoke fluent French and was a nationally ranked tournament fencer, a sport he relinquished due to injuries and as he became more involved in art. A mental breakdown interrupted his art school education and he began to experience the schizophrenia with which he struggled for much of his adult life. Through the chaos and pain of his illness Andrew destroyed his entire body of work three times, as well as a number of finished novels. By the two decades of life preceding his demise, however, he had stabilized and experienced no episodes or hospitalizations, a healing process facilitated in no small part by deep immersion in his art, and only after his death was the full range of his output discovered. Andy admired the work of artists from Vermeer to Basquiat. The museum presented a solo show of his work in 2014. As well as a massive archive of artwork, Andy also left behind many written accounts expressing an acute awareness of his own work and mental state, as well as rigorous and compassionate essays on history and religion; he cared deeply about political injustice and ruminated on his work as painstakingly as any professional artist. Kent Anderson Butler: Drowning with Land Still in Sight Kent Anderson Butler is a Los Angeles based artist that focuses his work on the spiritual, mental and physical experiences that the body encounters. Anderson Butler works with multiple mediums including video installation, photography and performance. Drowning with Land Still in Sight is a series that communicates pain, pleasure, struggle, redemption and restoration of the body through mixed media, including installation, portrait photography, sculpture, performance and video. Inspired by the religious philosopher Teilhard De Chardin, Anderson Butler exposes his personal religious thinking in terms of life, death, and transcendence through this collection. Through his artwork, he aims to express and stress the importance of the human experience and, in turn, show how we live in our own body. Kent Anderson Butler studied video and film, receiving his Bachelor degree from Biola University and his Master of Fine Arts from California State University, Fullerton. Anderson Butler is the director of visual arts and a professor at Azusa Pacific University, teaching art at both the undergraduate and graduate level, with an emphasis on photography. He has also been involved in a range of exhibits including both solo exhibitions and group exhibitions. His pieces have been displayed both nationally and internationally, being shown at the International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Venezuela, the Cave Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, the Pasadena Museum of California Art, among many others. In 2012, the Kellogg University Art Gallery at Cal Poly Pomona presented an exhibition featuring a decade of work by Anderson Butler. In 2014, Anderson Butler was chosen to be an Artist in Residence at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts in Rabun Gap, Georgia. Eric Minh Swenson: Art Stars Art Stars , Eric Minh Swenson's latest body of work focuses on celebrating women's influence and impact on the Art World. In collaboration with Coagula Art Journal , Art Stars , is an expansive series of over 200 photographs that build public awareness and celebare female contributions as artists, curators, gallerists, etc. Eric Minh Swenson grew up in San Antonio, Texas and through his father discovered the craft of photography. Swenson captures moments that are spontaneous and impromptu while utilizing color and texture to expand his artistic horizon. He shares that the inspiration comes through architecture, vibrant landmarks, music, and various other art forms, relating to Fauvist techniques. After a move to Hollywood in the 1990’s, Swenson found a passion in cinema and began to produce documentaries and promos for other artists, curators and fine art collectors. His art focuses on celebrating the culture and art of Southern California and how it is always developing just like he is. Swenson was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, but relocated shortly after. Though he never took an art class prior to college, he graduated with a Fine Arts Degree after attending both the University of Texas in San Antonio and Brigham Young University in Utah. Upon receiving his degree, Swenson went on to form a film society, producing over 600 short films as well as producing and directing four feature length narrative films and a documentary. Swenson has also relentlessly photographed art openings across the Southland, ardently bringing the milieu to the public eye while capturing artists, collectors and enthusiasts in situ. In 2001, he moved to the Southern California. Through his emphasis on the documentation of the Los Angeles art scene, Swenson focuses much of his attention on bringing public awareness into the realm of art as a cultural experience. https://vimeo.com/166920771 Jane Szabo: Sense of Self and Reconstructing Self Jane Szabo has a passion for the human condition and studies the ways we live today, how we relate to each other, how we feel about our identity as individuals, and how it fits together collectively as a community. Szabo merges everyday fabrications with conceptual photography in a series of self-portraits as a means to interpret the psychological complexity of what it is to be human. In her series Sense of Self, Szabo utilizes in-motion self-portraits against a harlequin pattern wall to convey issues of control over herself as well as the external environment, revealing her own vulnerability. Through the use of elements such as light and movement, she aims to capture a sense of chaos and the internal struggle to maintain order as well as the conflicts that occur in the process. She also creates still life images, using inanimate objects to portray a story which invites viewers to draw their own interpretation of meaning, generally relating to feelings of alienation and loneliness. She explores issues of identity through the juxtaposition of fashion, sculpture, installation and photography, seeking to highlight the necessary balance between one’s self and the outside world in her series Reconstructing Self. Szabo has a background as a painter and installation artist with some experience in creating custom props and scenery, which continues to contribute to her artistic style. Jane Szabo is a Los Angeles based photographer known for her award winning fine art photography. Her work has been published and reviewed in The Huffington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Szabo’s photography has been displayed in multiple exhibitions at institutions such as: Oceanside Museum of Art, the Griffin Museum of Photography, Colorado Center for Photographic Arts, PhotoSpiva, San Diego Art Institute, The Los Angeles Center for Photography, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art and Gallery 825 in Los Angeles. In 2014 her work Sense of Self was featured as a solo exhibition at the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art. In 2016, her work Sense of Self and Reconstructing Self were shown as a combined set in Arizona under the title Investigating Self. Nataša Prosenc Stearns: Night Spring Local California artist, Nataša Prosenc Stearns works with film, video art, installations and prints to explore the human body in juxtaposition with the natural and technological worlds. Stearns delivers gravitating pieces that reveal her passion and desire for undiscovered potential of the human body. Working with the effects of anxiety and angst with a bodiless cyber-space, Stearns’ focus on the human body is pushed deeper as she continues to find more complex meaning relating technology to physical life. As her style progressed, she has gradually started to engage her own body, discovering new ideas for her growing passion. Night Spring , featured at the 2015 Venice Biennale, consists of an HD single-channel video with a series of digital prints. The video is composed of a geyser that eventually erodes due to natural effects revealing a human form. She combines organic forms with inorganic ones that are both subjects of transformation, while also putting on display their simultaneous abstractions. Nataša Prosenc Stearns was born in Slovenia and began her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Slovenia. She moved to California as a Fulbright scholar to pursue her Master of Fine Arts from California Institute of the Arts. Since completing her education, she has been the recipient of the Soros Grant and the Durfee Foundation Grant, among others. Stearns has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions, as well as film screenings and lectures. Her work has been shown internationally at the ARCO Fair in Spain, the Douloun Museum of Art in Shanghai, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in Israel and numerous venues in the United States. Stearns currently resides in Southern California, where she continues to work. May 7 - July 24, 2016 Back to list

< Back Mela M Featured Structure Artist MANIFEST STRUCTURES FROM THE IMAGINAL is a new body of work from Mela that captures the artist's concept of "a provocative stream of consciousness as the past informs the present… to imagine multiple future possibilities." For Mela, these works bear witness to species-driven archetypes that result in how humans structure their lives on a physical and emotional level. The acceleration of science and technology have made these cultural systems increasingly complex, and these intricacies are reflected in Mela's structural representations. Mela strives to create visualizations of the different layers of human consciousness as imagined through multiple dimensions and timelines, and hopes her work challenges upcoming artists to draw inspiration from this not-so-common era. There are five distinct but related components from throughout the museum that make up MANIFEST STRUCTURES FROM THE IMAGINAL: a set of four acrylic paintings titled THE EVOLUTION OF THE OMEGATROPOLIS THROUGH FOUR SEASONS OF ARCHITECTONIC METAMORPHOSIS (lobby atrium), the hand-drawn CITYSCAPES OF ARCHITECTONIC METAMORPHOSIS FOR THE COMMON ERA (wall leading to the Jewel Box), a symbolic monument titled THE TOTEM OF THE MOON CASTLE (Jewel Box), and two architectural wooden sculptures titled THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE MOVES THROUGH IRREGULAR ANGLES IN A RISING WALL FROM AN ARCHITECTONIC CITY WITHOUT NAME OR PLACE OR TIME and THE WALL TEMPLE AT THE VANISHING POINT (Ralph and Virginia Bozigian Family Gallery). Mela M has an MFA from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California and an MFA from the Technological Institute of Art and Textile Design in Belarus. Her work has garnered national and international recognition with over twenty solo exhibitions, twenty-seven museum group exhibitions, and dozens of group shows in colleges and universities. She has been honored with numerous prizes and awards internationally, and her work can be found in the permanent collections of the Long Beach Museum of Art in California, the Southwestern Oregon College at Coos Bay in Oregon, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belarus. Previous Next

back to list Amandalynn Amandalynn is a muralist and fine artist based in Northern California. Inspired by the feminine in all things, Amandalynn depicts the subtle beauty of the natural world and humankind, through illustrated line work and decorative patterning. Her works can be found in galleries and streets all over the world. She began developing her distinct Street Art style mural work in 2001, painting alongside the graffiti community of San Francisco. Amandalynn is very passionate about her outdoor mural work and still enjoys collaborating with a variety of different artists, as well as creating large solo works. Fine Art also plays a key role in Amandalynn's life, as she continues to develop her career as a professional gallery artist. She has a bachelor’s degree of Fine Art from the San Francisco Academy of Art, and recently has started teaching mural classes to middle and high school students. Amandalynn believes that sharing the creative process with others is the key to living an inspired life.

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

Artist Lorraine Bubar explored the Prime Desert Woodland Preserve during a six-month period in 2025 as part of the Elyze Clifford Interpretive Center (ECIC) Artist-in-Residence program. In that time, she created beautiful papercut artworks inspired by the Mojave Desert landscape. Her colorful, layered paper pieces capture the unique plants, animals, and natural beauty of this special urban desert oasis. The work on view in her exhibition at ECIC are print reproductions of these cut paper works she created through a technique that she sees as painting with paper. These intricate designs weave together themes of metamorphosis, movement, and the hierarchies of desert life. Her artwork celebrates the amazing ecosystems found right here in our local preserve. During her residency, Bubar also taught community workshops, sharing her love of art and nature with visitors. Artwork provided by Lorraine Bubar Elyze Clifford Interpretive Center: 43201 35th St W, Lancaster, CA 93536 << Back to PDWP & ECIC page