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Back to Exhibitions The Precarious Life of the Parol January 31 - April 19, 2026 • Past Exhibition Joseph Stello Family and Jewel Box Galleries Textile sculptures and installations celebrating Filipinx heritage while tracing the complex, often obscured colonial history of the parol , a traditional star lantern. Part of Metaphor exhibition season Image Credit: Diane Briones Williams, Anting, Anting (detail), 2021, Salvaged wooden frames, cement, wire, dowel, yarn, resin, acrylic, sinigang seasoning wrappers Courtesy of the Artist About the Artist Big Title I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy.

The Exhibition Census Block Map #countmein Blog photo gallery Artists in Residence Videos About the Census Every 10 years, the U.S. Census counts every resident in the nation. A complete and accurate count of California’s population is essential to the state. The Lancaster Museum of Art and History and the neighborhoods which immediately surround the Museum, historically, have had high Low Response Scores (LRS). Neighborhoods with Low Response Scores typically go undercounted and remain underrepresented and underfunded. For the first time, the Census participation will be conducted primarily through online self-responses instead of hard copy mailing efforts. This change has the potential to drastically impact state and county funding. Many critical factors can be barriers to participation in the Census including education, race, languages spoken, poverty level, homelessness, immigration status and level of trust. The Lancaster Museum of Art and History believes that change happens at the speed of trust. The Museum has found the best way to build trust between an organization and its community, breaking down these barriers, is by embedding artists who reflect the communities in which they live and work, who look the same and speak the same language. Through a series of workshops, community gatherings, candid photography, and a public exhibition, the artists-in-residence will increase the self-enumerated responses of these identified Low Response Score (LRS) neighborhoods in the 2020 Census. This is especially important for areas like the Antelope Valley. In the Antelope Valley, approximately 101,320 people are living in Hard to Survey (HTS) Block Groups. The Museum of Art and History and the neighborhoods that immediately surround the Museum are designated as Very High or High Low Response Score (LRS) neighborhoods. The Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation (LMPAF), the Museum of Art and History and the City of Lancaster believe that organizations and community leaders must be proactive, educating, encouraging and empowering residents to participate in the Census! Generously sponsored by Housing Corporation of America #CountMeIn Photo Videos #CountMeIn Videos Share Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tumblr Copy Link Link Copied #CountMeIn Photo Gallery Spotlight Cafe Book Making Workshop Tote bag Screen Printing Workshop Chalk Drawing Engagement Artists’ Bookmaking On The BLVD Gallery Video #CountMeIn Census Block Map Below you will find a map of each neighborhood block group located in downtown Lancaster. Block groups can vary in size and population typically from 1,000 to over 3,000 people in any one block group. Block groups with “Very High” Low Response Scores (LRS) are seen in red; block groups with “High” Low Response Scores are seen in orange; and block groups with “Medium” Low Response Scores are seen in yellow. Block groups seen in green are regarded as having a “Low” Low Response Score. Do you live in one of these block groups? If so, what is level is your Low Response Score? #CountMeIn is working towards having each block group decrease their Low Response Scores by 10% or from “Very High” to “High,” “High” to “Medium” and “Medium” to “Low.” #CountMeIn Artist in Residence Robin Rosenthal has been developing creative place-keeping projects in the Antelope Valley since 2015, when she was commissioned Artist-in-Residence by the LA County Arts Commission for their NEA Our Town funded AV Art Outpost initiative (on which LMPAF was a partner). She is the Founder and Artistic Director of Real93543, an emerging local arts organization whose programming engages Littlerock and Southeast Antelope Valley residents in an arts-based process of strengthening local ownership and social connection—highlighting community-specific narratives through documentary media, educational programs, and public art. (See Real93543’s projects at www.real93543.org .) With a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and an MFA from Queens College, CUNY, Rosenthal taught studio art at San Antonio College and the San Antonio Art Institute, and exhibited her experimental videos nationally before coming to Los Angeles to work in film and television. Her award-winning documentary filmmaking practice, as half of the Littlerock-based Pony Highway Productions, draws from her background as an artist, educator, and motion picture industry professional, and informs her work in creative place-keeping. Short link to Positively Littlerock Story Map Tour: https://arcg.is/18X4D1 YouTube link to Real93543 In a Day video: https://youtu.be/ZzcDyJgwAsM Edwin Vasquez is a self-taught artist. Vasquez has studied with other notable Antelope Valley Artists and Teachers such as Glen Knowles, David Babb, Rich Sims and Warren Scherich. Over the years, Vasquez has been featured in several group exhibitions including the State Latin American Visual Arts in Rhode Island (where his work was recognized by Governor Lincoln D. Chafee), Communication at Casa 0101 in Los Angeles, Don’t Sleep! at the Latino Art Museum in Pomona and is a regularly selected artist in Lancaster’s Museum of Art & History’s annual All-Media Juried Art Exhibition. Vasquez has participated, as both an Artist and Curator, in numerous local exhibitions. Vasquez was born in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala in 1964. Jane Szabo is a Los Angeles based fine art photographer with a Master of Fine Arts from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. Her work investigates issues of self and identity. Using self-portraiture and still life as a vehicle to share stories from her life, her work merges her love for fabrication and materials, with conceptual photography. Szabo brings many facets of visual art into her photographic projects, incorporating sculptural, performance and installation elements into her work, and her imagery is often infused with humor and wonder. Szabo's background in the film industry, creating props and miniatures for theme parks, and overseeing set construction for film and television, undoubtedly informs her creative process. #CountMeIn Events Calendar #CountMeIn: A Census 2020 Project Friday, July 19 , 2020, 6 - 9PM 44857 Cedar Ave, Lancaster, CA 93534 Join the #CountMeIn team for its first official project workshop happening this Friday during Spotlight Cafe Open Mic Night beginning at 6 pm. The #CountMeIn team will be onsite asking participants to generate poetry/prose using the words "count," "me," and "in." These works can then be shared with an audience, letting them and your community know that our community matters and that you deserve to be counted on the upcoming Census. This project is generously supported in part by the California Art Council, City of Lancaster and the Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation. #CountMeIn: Census 2020 Book-Making Workshop Saturday, August 3, 2020, 3 - 6 PM 742 W Lancaster Blvd, Lancaster, CA 93534 Join the #CountMeIn team at Li'l Book Bug on the BLVD for a fun bookmaking workshop. This workshop will utilize Census 2020 as inspiration to create a collaborative art book. The #CountMeIn team will be onsite leading participants through the creative process. All materials will be provided. These works can then be shared with an audience, letting them and your community know that our community matters and that you deserve to be counted on the upcoming Census. Artist-in-Residence, Jane Szabo, will be onsite photographing interested participants while they create the books. This project is generously supported in part by the California Art Council, City of Lancaster and the Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation. #CountMeIn: Tote Bag Screen Printing Workshop Thursday, October 24, 2020 4 - 9 PM 665 W Lancaster Blvd, Lancaster, CA 93534 Join the #CountMeIn Team for its next #CountMeIn, A Census 2020 Project, Screen Printing Workshop! Taking place in the Fran and Hernando Marroquin Family Classroom, participants can grab a tote bag, or bandana, and impress upon them Census-minded artwork. Take the tote bag with you as peruse the great, organic food at The BLVD Farmer's Market! This project is generously supported in part by the California Art Council, City of Lancaster and the Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation. #CountMeIn: Chalk Drawing Engagement Saturday, December 7, 2020 2:30 PM Sacred Heart Church - 565 W. Kettering Street The #CountMeIn team invites the Families of Sacred Heart Catholic Church to participate in an afternoon of chalk drawing. Chalks and other materials will be provided for families to create their own colorful drawings on the asphalt, in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. During the event, the #CountMeIn team will share information about the upcoming 2020 Census and the value of being counted. #CountMeIn: Artists’ Bookmaking Saturday, January 25, 2020 11 AM - 3 PM 44857 Cedar Ave, Lancaster, CA 93534 On Saturday, January 25th the #CountMeIn Team invites a group of Antelope Valley artists to the Andrew Frieder Creative Space at MOAH:Cedar to make pages for a collaborative, accordion-fold art book, using the letters of the words #CountMeIn, and referencing inclusion, being counted, community, etc. The resulting artists’ book will be shown as part of MOAH’s #CountMeIn exhibit. Artists will have access to materials in the well-stocked Andrew Frieder Creative Space, and can bring materials and mediums from their own practice as well. #CountMeIn #CountMeIn2020 #CountMeInAV #Census2020 #LancasterMOAH Map Artist in Residence Calendar #CountMeIn Resources The Exhibition www.census.gov www.advancementprojectca.org www.avph.org www.cityoflancasterca.org Resources

back to list Carlos Mendoza Carlos Mendoza is a local Antelope Valley artist who considers himself an art rebel, with his art style demonstrating a raw and free essence. Mendoza has been painting murals in the Antelope Valley for six years but he also works with acrylic, oils, wire, and whatever he can get his hands on. Mendoza utilizes the lack of public art in certain areas of the Antelope Valley inspiration as a driving force for his murals, often as a part of transformation projects for schools around the AV. For Mendoza, public art is an essential part of providing citizens a sense of pride in their community and giving youth a sense of hope for their future. Mendoza aspires to venture outside the Antelope Valley and paint murals in Mexico.

Desert Forest: Life with Joshua Trees September 7 - December 29, 2024 The Lancaster Museum of Art and History (MOAH) has partnered with the Getty, and 70+ other organizations, for PST ART: Art & Science Collide . On Saturday, September 7, the Lancaster Museum of Art and History will open Desert Forest: Life with Joshua Trees , as part of the Getty PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative. The exhibition sheds light on the threatened Joshua tree and the fragile Mojave Desert ecosystem that sustains it. The project integrates natural history, indigenous knowledge, public policy, scientific research, and artistic expressions to emphasize the challenges facing the Joshua tree and conservation efforts. With a focus on the impact of climate change, development, wildfires, and other threats, the exhibition explores the symbiotic relationships between Joshua trees, soil fungi, and moth pollinators, engaging a diverse audience interested in arts and environmental issues. Desert Forest features more than 50 historical and contemporary artists who have produced artworks that exemplify a range of ideas across myriad practices. The exhibition will remain on view from Saturday, September 7, 2024 to Sunday, December 29, 2024. Southern California’s landmark arts event, PST ART, returns in September 2024 with more than 70 exhibitions from museums and other institutions across the region, all exploring the intersections of art and science, both past and present. Dozens of cultural, scientific, and community organizations will join the latest edition, PST ART: Art & Science Collide , with exhibitions on subjects ranging from ancient cosmologies to Indigenous sci-fi, and from environmental justice to artificial intelligence. Art & Science Collide will share groundbreaking research, create indelible experiences for the public, and generate new ways of understanding our complex world. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide , please visit pst.art Sant Khalsa, Curator and Juniper Harrower, Associate Curator Featuring contemporary artworks by Linda Alterwitz, Marthe Aponte, Madena Asbell, Nancy Baker Cahill, Diane Best, Darin Boville, Matthew Brandt, Fred Brashear Jr, Bill Leigh Brewer, Claudia Bucher, Bureau of Linguistical Reality, Gerald Clarke, Maryrose Crook, Torreya Cummings, James M Dailey, Scott B. Davis, Department of Floristic Welfare, Dani Dodge, Edgar Fabián Frías, Rob Grad, Jennifer Gunlock, Juniper Harrower, Jessie Homer French, Christine Huhn, Monroe Isenberg, Adriene Jenik, Jetsonorama (Chip Thomas), Jenny Kane, Yulia Kazakova, Sant Khalsa, Casey Kiernan, Stevie Love, Rebecca Lowry, Meg Madison, Aline Mare, Chris McCaw, Paloma Menéndez, Eric Merrell, Chelsea Mosher, Daisuke Okamoto, Michelle Robinson, Cara Romero, Catherine Ruane, Ed Ruscha, Hiroyuki Seo, Kim Stringfellow, Ruth Wallen, Jennifer Valenzuela, and Danielle Giudici Wallis; and historical artworks by Sarah E. Blanchard, Ralph D. Cornell, E.O. Hoppé, Olive Jackson, Gerald D. Jeffers, Charles Koppel, Jane Pinheiro, Betty Warner and Carleton Watkins. COMMUNITY HUB Learn about the upcoming engagement events for Desert Forest: Life of Joshua Trees Learn more View our Digital Program Click the button to view our digital program and learn more about the exhibition and upcoming community hub events! View Digital Program Desert Forest Book Front Cover Mock Up Please note: The book pictured is a mock-up and may not represent the final product. Actual book design and features may vary. Desert Forest Book Mock-Up Inside Pages Please note: The book pictured is a mock-up and may not represent the final product. Actual book design and features may vary. Desert Forest Book Mock-Up Backside Please note: The book pictured is a mock-up and may not represent the final product. Actual book design and features may vary. Desert Forest Book Front Cover Mock Up Please note: The book pictured is a mock-up and may not represent the final product. Actual book design and features may vary. 1/3 NEW BOOK: Desert Forest: Life with Joshua Trees Explore the deeply entangled relationships between humans and Joshua trees in Desert Forest: Life with Joshua Trees —a captivating collection of essays and imagery that reveals how we can protect this iconic species from the threats of climate change and development. Shop Now Thank you to our sponsors! CREATIVE RESEARCH FUND REAL93543

Camille Murray < Back From an Oleanders View By Camille Murray The preschool kids have just now returned to school, disrupting my year of quietness given to me by the pandemic. The sound of basketballs bouncing and chains swinging and crashing into backboards. The clicking of skateboards and scooters going in and out of the cracks of the sidewalks. Women walk their babies, and families walk their new puppies. The sun is shining on everyone, giving the kids at the public pool sunburns. I can hear screams of happiness and see a handful of children sliding down slides and swinging on swings until the sight of the park gets blocked. I see a large figure sprinting towards me; the happiness in its face warns me that the figure is interested in me. I start shaking as the heavy footsteps approach me; leaves slowly fall from my branches, letting me know it was their time to go. The figure gets close enough to where I can see that it is one of the preschoolers who found a way to get out of the gated playground and past the supervision. The child collapses on her knees and examines my petals like a scientist. Her golden hair shines in the sun, and I can see each highlight of yellows and blonds flowing in the wind. The annoyance fills me up because I know she will pick my pink petals, and she does not know that I am poisonous to her. The sharp pain I experienced as a piece of my stem is pulled off, and the shocked look the girl had on her face after she felt the itchiness of the petals. She takes off running towards the gated playground and explains to her teachers that her fingers were red and puffy. A warning is spread around the preschool children about my dangerous presence, but it is not spread far enough throughout the park; someone new always finds me attractive and gets too comfortable with my looks. Previous Next

Up LA Painting Various Artists Five Year Survey curated by Cooper Johnson In MOAH’s Main Gallery, Five Year Survey , curated by Cooper Johnson features significant Los Angeles painters over the last five years. Its paintings range from socially-conscious figurative works to “pure” abstraction and everything in between. The exhibition exudes pure joy in paint as a material, with thick impasto brushwork, energetic mark-making, and bright, fresh color palettes. But paint isn’t the only material these artists utilize; photography, digital rendering, and printmaking all make their way into the work to break the mold of tradition and subvert expectations of what painting is and means. Five Year Survey is a cross-section of Los Angeles painting of the last five years, as exemplified by 15 artists who are moving the medium in new directions. Whether the artists of the survey pull from socio-political fray, bend the logic of composition, reinvigorate the mark, or push painting into the digital, all have a command of material and concept that enables multifaceted work. More importantly, their work reflects salient aspects of living in the present moment: an increased awareness of identity, hyper-connectedness and information abundance, and a heightened sensitivity to what is fake and what is real. And in this context, three themes emerge throughout the survey. First, many of the paintings in the survey address ideas surrounding identity. Taken together, these works suggest how identity can be viewed merely as a construct, but at the same time, the cause of serious issues concerning one’s experience. Something fabricated but nevertheless real. In Five Year Survey , identity is not about our physical features or inherent qualities, but is instead about the meanings we create for them, and store through object, symbol, and mark. And how those meanings, usually with historical and cultural momentum, are imposed, inflicted, or bestowed on each of us. Five Year Survey prompts us to consider not only how these attached meanings affect our day-to-day lives, but the inverse: whether there is something we truly are without our fabrications. A second theme throughout the survey is the use of paint to confuse how we define and experience what is “real.” Whether approaching the issue from painting’s tradition of illusion or its drift into the digital, these artists manipulate the mind’s natural functions, ranging from base-level sense-making to the desire to treat illusion as real. Artists handle this in a variety of ways in the survey. Objects in a landscape might be simultaneously revealed as staged—mere props in a diorama—but remain cloaked in the illusion of representation. Forms can be ambivalently representative and abstract, trigging the mind’s need to recognize patterns, but denying it certainty. The “space” in a painting may be structured to contain incompatible objects, forcing the mind to reconcile what shouldn’t exist in the same space. Even light itself, painted as textureless and pure as the sublime, lets slight deviations of the hand creep in. These works leave the viewer in seemingly contradictory states: experiencing the painting as “real,” but at the same time, hearing its confessions to the contrary. Third is the theme of plurality and purity in painting—paintings that do not zero in on any single concept, logic, or style, but are more interested in how different sets of rules can coexist in a single image. As seen over painting’s historical cycles of “purification” (and subsequent complication), narrowing down an image or process to its essence simultaneously constructs rules about the logic of its creation and interpretation. Although this isn’t new, the current trend away from “pure” painting seems to fit in the context of how technologically connected we are—not only do we have increasing access to a broader variety of work, but the role of the traditional gatekeepers is not as critical. In Five Year Survey , for example, this could include: charging geometric abstractions with agency or narrative; imbuing marks with more than the immediate movement or gesture, sometimes even elements of the painter’s identity; distorting the logic of the painting’s creation; nesting disparate styles within each other; or ironically adopting the rules of previous styles but conceptually contributing to them nonetheless. While Five Year Survey has no unifying concept, these three themes have similar analytical structures that inflect on, resonate with, and map onto the others. Whether it is our identity, our reality, or our rules of constructing images, the survey asks the viewer to explore the relationships we have with our own fabrications—the extent to which they only exist because we created them, and the extent to which we are nevertheless bound to them. Solo show DAVID ALLAN PETERS David Allan Peters creates work that explodes with countless layers of color and intricate texture, combining painting with sculptural hand-carved qualities. Diamonds, grids and circles create kaleidoscopic compositions that vibrantly explore geometry, intuition and chance. He has become known for his innovative process of building up material which is then peeled and cut away exposing what is below the initial surface, unveiling various colors at different depths. Peters sometimes works for 15 years on a single painting, painstakingly applying layer upon layer of acrylic paint and then cutting, scraping, sanding and carving into the layers to show the passage of time similar to the rings of a tree trunk. From the by-products of his paintings, Peters recycles the carved-out remnants into bricks forming minimalist installations. He pushes the limits of acrylic paint and the traditional painting processes, while dissolving the boundary between the second and third dimension. Rooted in the history of early West Coast abstraction, the genesis of Peters’ career was inspired by the dense layers found in other abstract artists such as Jay DeFeo. Continuously experimenting with pattern and diverse techniques, David Allan Peters’ latest body of work explores both the bold designs of Native American textiles and post-painterly, geometric abstractions. Peters received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Claremont Graduate University following his undergraduate at the Art Institute in San Francisco.The artist has been featured in WhiteWall magazine’s profile on the Anderson Collection as well as the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post, the New York Times and an artist profile in Elle Decor. Site Specific Installation ERIKA LIZÉE Site-specific installation Infinite Love/Flesh and Blood by Erika Lizée spans three floors in the MOAH atrium. Erika Lizée uses trompe l’oeil and sculptural acrylic painting to create images that seem to “react” to the actual light and shadows of the space in which they reside. Her magically biomorphic installations are strange yet familiar, and seem to recede behind the gallery wall and reach out toward the viewer simultaneously. Lizée imagines the wall surface as a symbolic threshold between different realms or states of existence. She is also inspired by Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, a tale of human perception and how our perceptions and experiences shape our personal reality. “The visionary function, which fulfills the soul’s need for placing itself in the vast scheme of things, has been suppressed, with the result that as a culture, we have lost the gift of vision,” states Lizée. She believes there is a “universal and ever-present urge for transcendence, for going beyond the mundane to experience the sublime. I hope to provide such an otherworldly experience.” Lizée’s recent body of work is based on her studies of the numbers 1 through 10 as well as sacred geometry. Infinite Love/Flesh and Blood at MOAH is inspired by the number 8, with visual references to the shape of the clematis flower, oxygen (the 8th element on the periodic table), musical octaves (there are eight notes in an octave) and the infinity symbol (which looks like a number “8”). Raised in a family of four and now having her own family of four, the number eight holds great symbolic power for Lizée as she reflects on love and life. Erika Lizée earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting from the University of North Carolina Asheville and her Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting from California State University Northridge. She is currently a tenured professor at Moorpark College and the Director of the Moorpark College Art Gallery. A Visual Game of “Telephone” 49 works of art created by 49 contemporary artists in absolute secrecy over a period of nine years. Laura Hipke and painter Shane Guffogg’s curatorial project Circle of Truth in the South Gallery is comprised of works by Ed Ruscha, Shane Guffogg, Billy Al Bengston, Lita Albuquerque, Jim Morphesis, Charles Arnoldi, Robert Williams, Ruth Weisberg and 41 other artists in a modern, visual take on a common childhood game “Telephone”. The Circle of Truth project opens a dialog regarding the nature of what is considered “truth”, and the inherent flaws of receiving and re-transmitting information from one person to the next. The process for the Circle of Truth project was simple: the first painting, created by Shane Guffogg, was delivered to a second artist in the Circle along with a blank canvas. The second artist was instructed to find the “truth” in the first painting and respond with their own creation. That painting was then passed on to the next artist. As a rule, each artist was asked to keep their participation a secret until the project was completed. Circle of Truth, launched in 2009, was completed in 2016 and includes paintings by 49 different participating artists, all of which come from a variety of backgrounds and utilize painting styles ranging from hyper-realism to pure abstraction. The paintings will be hung in chronological order so visitors can see the progression of the “truth” over time. Each artist was also asked to write an essay about their experience. Excerpts of the essays will be available in the exhibition catalogue titled Circle of Truth (available for purchase at MOAH) and can be autographed during the book-signing on September 7 at 1 p.m. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OII1XYjBoBc Kaye Freeman in collaboration with Amy Kaps The Anatomy of a Painting Kaye Freeman in Collaboration with Amy Kaps: The Anatomy of a Painting , examines the performative act of applying paint while expanding the painting plane to include the Museum’s entire East Gallery. Kaps’ role as curator quickly morphed into that of cohort, catalyst and collaborator when she asked artist Kaye Freeman to participate in creating the immersive painting installation. Together, they explore the body in relation to the process and product of painting. The curatorial vision for The Anatomy of a Painting is to tell the story of “creation” from the artist’s point of view using Freeman’s bright color palette and intuitive brush marks. Inspired by Yves Klein’s Anthropometries, Freeman paints directly on Kaps’ nude body, using the human form as a mark-making tool. The installation is made complete with a performance by Amy Kaps in which she walks around the gallery as viewers tear pieces of artwork off her dress, gradually revealing a satin under-dress embellished with body prints, black and white photographs and gestural brush-strokes by Freeman. Kaye Freeman uses painting and drawing to “fold and unfold the myths that surround us like a cosmic origami”. Memories and shared emotions weave through her paintings, abstracted and reshaped again and again until an ineffable common humanity and truth is revealed. Kaye Freeman was born in Hong Kong, raised in downtown Tokyo and currently resides in Los Angeles, California. She has shown in solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia and southern California. Amy Kaps is an interdisciplinary artist in constant dialogue with her surroundings and those who inhabit it. Possessing a predilection for the abstract and surreal while emphasizing the human form and condition, she presents a psychological puzzle hoping to entice the viewer to question what they see. Kaps is a past Artist-in-Residence at the Museum of Art and History and completed a major installation at MOAH:CEDAR in 2018. She has worked in the realms of performance, installation, video, photography, music and words in the United States, Germany, Cuba and Spain. She currently lives in Venice, California. Selections from the Permanent Collection Selected highlights from Lancaster Museum of Art and History’s (MOAH) permanent collection are on display throughout LA Painting. The mission of the permanent collection is to celebrate the rich creative culture and history of southern California. As the Lancaster Museum of Art and History, we place great importance on being good stewards of the art of its collection by preserving and displaying artworks for the enjoyment and education of the public. MOAH emphasizes the support of emerging and established local artists that are significant to our region’s unique cultural perspective. Highlights from the permanent collection include works by: Craig “Skibs” Barker Billy Al Bengston Gary Brewer The Clayton Brothers Rebecca Campbell Alex Couwenberg Julius Eastman Renee Fox Dion Johnson Michael Jones Christine Kline Gary Lang Scott Listfield Stevie Love Bradford Salamon Andrew Schoultz Roni Stretch Tim Youd Eric Zammitt August 10 - October 20, 2019 Back to list

Up Threads of Entanglement Orly Cogan Hand embroidery typically conjures up images of docile women, silently working on their expected domestic duties through their needle work. This traditionally feminine medium was once seen as an indicator of marriage suitability, teaching ideas of modesty, virtue, and obedience. Artist Orly Cogan reclaims the medium, using vintage fabrics as a foundation for her hand stitched explorations of modern women. Cogan challenges the idea of embroidery being a symbol of female domesticity and injects themes of sensuality, feminism, and power to portray the evolving role of women in society. Cogan’s love for embroidery stems from her early years in grade school where she would learn to knit and crochet with natural fiber materials. This fondness for the material was also encouraged through her mother's collection of samplers — pieces of embroidered cloth meant to represent a larger whole — and quilts. Cogan describes her work as intuitive, figuring out the stitching as she goes, utilizing an embroidery hoop, appliqué, and paint to bring movement within the stitches. The result is a dreamy and ethereal quality that speaks to the feminist fairytales she creates in her pieces. May 13 - August 20 Back to list

MOAH's Generous Sponsors & Cultural Partners Hernando & Fran Marroquin Mark & Hilarie Moore Family Trust

Past Exhibitions List Celebrate the Lunar New Year Read More Gouache Plein Air Paintings Artist in Residence Read More You are (the interpreter) Here Artist in Residence Read More Mojave Meditations Read More Repairing the Future DIVERSEart LA 2024 Read More It's Just the Desert Read More Woodland Creatures Read More Llamando Read More Threads of Entanglement Read More Play.Create.Collect Read More Flora Read More Legacy Read More Contemporary Landscape: From the Desert to the Sea Read More Green Revolution Read More Vanity Read More Made in America Read More Artist As Subject Read More British Invasion Read More Estate Italiana Read More Made in the Mojave Read More Movers and Makers Read More Imagen Angeleno Read More The Forest for the Trees Read More The Robot Show Read More It Takes a Village Read More The New Vanguard II Read More Photography: Beyond the Surface Read More Collaborate and Create Read More LA Painting Read More Art Activations at the Preserve Read More A print collection Read More First People, First Community Read More The Rule of Progress Read More The Muse Read More Woven Stories Read More Peace On Earth Read More The New Vanguard III Read More The Light of Space Read More Empty Vessel Excerpts Read More 300-Miles to Wounded Knee: The Oomaka Tokatakiya, Future Generations Ride Read More What it takes to survive a crisis or the imaginary Richter scale of rage Read More Golden Hour: California Photography from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Read More Golden Hour: Images from the Museum of Art & History's permanent collection Read More Hysteria Read More NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center 75th Anniversary An exhibition highlights the many achievements and accomplishments of the Armstrong Flight Research Center Read More Citrus Series A critique of these large-scale industrial complexes a the damaging processes of unsustainable agricultural production Read More We Are Home An assorted community quilt project portraying visual representations of home, highlighting the humanist aspect of her work. Read More Structure One Exhibit. Nine Unique Artists. Read More Activation Read More CountMeIn - 2020 Census Project Read More What Would You Say? Activist Graphics from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Read More

Colorimetry < Return to Exhibitions January 18 - March 16 Ruth Pastine: Attraction 1993 - 2013 Main Gallery Gisela Colon: Glo-Pod Jewel Box John Eden: Roundel Series Second Floor - Staircase Atrium Johannes Girardoni: Chromasonic Field Blue/Green, 2013 Second Floor East Gallery Phillip K Smith III: Lucid Stead: Four Windows and the Doorway Vault Gallery Karl Benjamin Entry Atrium Dion Johnson: Light Sequence - Aquarium' 2013 Education Gallery January 23 - March 13 Innovations 29th Annual All-Media Juried Art Exhibition South Gallery Ruth Pastine Gisela Colon John Eden Karl Benjamin Dion Johnson Phillip K Smith Johannes Girardoni Anita Ray Innovations 29th Annual All-Media Curator's Award Eden Pastine Girardoni Johnson Benjamin Innovations Colon Ruth Pastine: Attraction 1993-2013 In the world of human perception, perhaps no single stimulus evokes a more complex cascade of responses than that of the phenomenon of color. Our perception of the color spectrum is completely dependent upon light and is encountered thousands of times a day in seemingly infinite combinations. Whether in our homes, workplaces, neighborhoods, cities, in film, in art, even in our dreams, these encounters have the ability to trigger emotional, physiological, intellectual, aesthetic and spiritual responses. Creating this phenomenological interplay between color, light and perception is where renowned painter and color theorist Ruth Pastine thrives. Pastine’s oil paintings and pastel works on paper provide a contemplative field in which we may dwell and absorb the intimate relationships she presents between warm colors and cool colors, between light and dark tones, between two-dimensions and the illusion of three-dimensional space. Pastine’s life’s work is dedicated to evolving the visual experience of color and redefining the perceptual field by combining contrasting color systems that challenge our preconceptions and ask us to move beyond the immediate attraction into the optical realm. The work is best experienced in person, which reveals the optical and visceral resonance of the hand painted surfaces. Through her work, color and light are reduced to their most elemental form. Thousands of tiny brush strokes appear visually seamless, producing an image that is both objective and pure and filled with nuance and subtlety that engages the viewer in the present tense of discovery. This journey parallels her painting process of being in the moment, in the here-and-now as she transforms a neutral canvas into a rich field of color. The square, vertical, and horizontal-rectangular framework of the canvas provides a gateway for departure, a means to access the future work, beyond that which seems finite. Ruth Pastine was born and raised in New York City. She received her B.F.A. from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York, NY in painting and art history, and her M.F.A. from Hunter College of the City University of New York in painting, color theory, and critical theory. She received the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Grant in 1999, and in 2000 in conjunction with The Shifting Foundation matching grant. In 2001 she relocated to Southern California where she currently works and resides. In 2009, she received a public commission from Brookfield Properties and created a site-specific installation titled Limitless , which is comprised of eight large-scale vertical paintings permanently on view in the lobbies of Ernst & Young Plaza in Los Angeles, CA. The Museum of Art & History is pleased to present Pastine’s first museum survey show with exhibition catalog essays by Donald Kuspit and Peter Frank. She has exhibited widely in the United States and Japan, and is included in many public and corporate collections across the nation. Gisela Colon: Glo-Pods The work of Los Angeles-based Gisela Colón has been associated with California Minimalism, specifically the Light & Space and Finish-Fetish movements more broadly referred to as “Perceptualism.” Colón’s sculptures investigate the properties of light in solid form and luminescent color through the use of industrial plastic materials. The Glo-Pods body of work—meticulously created through a proprietary fabrication process of blow-molding and layering acrylic—mark Colon as part of the next generation of southern California artists using light as exploratory media. The light appearing to emanate from the objects is an illusion based on color and form. Colón's use of amorphous, organic, asymmetrical lines and light-reflecting and radiating media make her objects appear to pulsate with light and energy. They simultaneously appear to both actively materialize and dissolve into the surrounding environment, allowing the experience of pure color and form in space. Colon’s goal is to bring about intriguing perceptual contradictions between visual elements such as: mass/lightness, solidity/delicacy, opacity/ transparency, muscularity/femininity, and intensity/nuance thus allowing for the exploration of the phenomenology of light, color, materiality, and space as we experience it through the human lens of the senses. Colón was born in 1966 in Vancouver, Canada, to a German mother and Puerto Rican father. She was raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico and attended the University of Puerto Rico, graduating magna cum laude in 1987 with a BA in Economics. Colón moved to Los Angeles to pursue graduate studies, receiving a Juris Doctorate degree from Southwestern University School of Law in 1990. She was given a Congressional Scholarship Award by the Harry S. Truman Foundation in recognition of her outstanding academic excellence. She was able to turn to art full-time in 2002, quickly developing a following for her abstract paintings. Colón’s increasing interest in light and space and issues of visual perception brought her to her present series of work and her conscious association with Light-and-Space and Finish-Fetish artists such as Robert Irwin, James Turrell, Craig Kauffman, DeWain Valentine, Helen Pashgian, Larry Bell, Ronald Davis, Mary Corse, and Peter Alexander. Colón has exhibited at national and international venues. In 2014, she will be featured in the survey exhibition “Trans-Angeles” at the Museum Wilhelm-Morgner Haus in Soest, Germany. John Eden: Roundel Series In his Roundel Series , Sculptor John Eden presents multicolored disks that are interpretations of the symbols and colors used to identify military aircrafts’ country of origin. These 'Roundels' were originally inspired by the tricolored Cockade uniform ribbon of the French Revolution and repurposed again during WWI for aerial combatants. Mr. Eden further abstracts these symbols into pure shape and form. Eden started the Roundel Series in the late fall of 2012 and to date has created twenty-nine discs in various sizes, with twenty-five different Roundel designs. Like many of his contemporaries within the Southern California Finish-Fetish movement, he works solo in his studio, attending to every detail with pride and dedication to his craft. His work is grounded in his lifelong fascination with hidden or secret meanings: things that appear to be one thing, but are quite the opposite—in this case beautiful objects with lethal intent. This series explores the idea that “all that glitters is not gold” and the dark side of beauty. Eden’s Roundel Series builds upon the pioneering legacy of Southern California artists who married industrial materials and the Los Angeles car culture with political activism in the early 1960s. Eden credits the feminist artist Judy Chicago and her 1964 Topical Car Hood Series as an inspiration for his Roundel Series . Chicago sprayed acrylic lacquer on Corvair car hoods in precise, bold patterns thereby ushering in a new era of materials and content in Southern California art. John Eden received his Master of Fine Arts in painting from the University of Southern California; Master of Arts in inter-media from California State University of Northridge; and Bachelor of Fine Arts in independent filmmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute. Eden attributes his skills in handling sensitive pigments, high polish surfaces and non-traditional materials largely developed by the California aerospace engineering industry to his advanced training under Jack Brogan in his world renowned fabrication studio. Since the 1960s Jack Brogan has been an important facet of the art scene in Southern California, working closely with artists such as John Eden, De Wain Valentine, Robert Irwin, Larry Bell, Helen Pashgian and John McCracken as a conservator, fabricator, and collaborator. MOAH is proud to continue exhibiting this legacy of artists and the fabricators who have helped pioneer the Light and Space and Finish-Fetish movements, all unique to Southern California. Eden shows widely in California and has published in The Los Angeles Times, Art Review and The San Diego Union Tribune. He lives and works in Los Angeles. Johannes Girardoni: Chromasonic Field Blue/Green, 2013 Johannes Girardoni is an American-based sculptor and installation artist. Girardoni is known for work that blurs the line between virtual and material content. Dispersed throughout a gallery filled with natural light, Chromasonic Field-Blue/Green is a series of semi-translucent blue cast resin beams. White LED’s illuminate them from within, projecting artificial light as well as allowing the surrounding natural light to pass through. The installation is outfitted with sensors calibrated to measure the specific color frequency emanating from the resin as well as the ambient light. The sensors drive a tone generator, which converts the light information to sound, essentially making light audible. These sensors also register the presence of the viewer moving through the space, which further modulates the sound. The boundaries between natural and digital phenomena are blurred in a field of luminous sound. Johannes Girardoni's work has been widely shown at museums and galleries in the US, Europe and Asia. In 2011, Girardoni's light and sound installation The (Dis)appearance of Everything was included in the 54th Venice Biennale, Italy. Selected other exhibitions include Personal Structures at the Ludwig Museum, Germany, 30 Years of Contemporary Art at the California Center for Contemporary Art and Creative Migration at The Austrian Cultural Forum, New York. His works are represented in public and private collections, such as the Harvard Art Museum, The Progressive Collection and The Margulies Collection. Girardoni has been the subject of features and reviews both nationally and internationally including: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, ArtNews, Art in America and Sculpture. In 2013, Girardoni completed a major in-situ permanent work, Metaspace 1 (The Infinite Room) , a light and sound sculpture conceived as part of architecture in collaboration with Smithsonian/Cooper Hewitt National Design Award winner Tom Kundig of Olson Kundig Architects. Girardoni’s Metaspace V2 , a groundbreaking interactive sculpture project that brings together art, technology, and science was first presented at the exhibition Off and On at Nye+Brown in Los Angeles. Phillip K. Smith: Lucid Stead: Four Windows and the Doorway Drawing inspiration from the optic sensation of California’s Light and Space movement, Phillip K. Smith III creates deceptively simple objects that seem to breathe and move as they are observed and experienced. This exhibition showcases one aspect of Smith’s Lucid Stead, 2013 an entirely site specific installation that incorporated LED lighting with mirrored panels on a 70 year old homesteading shack in the Mojave desert. Smith’s design of Lucid Stead was deeply influenced by his relationship to the desert, where he lives and works, and the inherent qualities unique to the Mojave: the quiet, expansive space, the reduced pace of change, and the uninterrupted color fields that occur as day shifts to night over the horizon. Using these ephemeral qualities as material and medium through the reflection of light and mirrors mounted on the homestead, Smith was able to place the building in direct conversation with the surrounding landscape. The four windows and doorway were outfitted with LED panels that slowly drenched the viewer in color. The desert context disappeared as day transformed into night and the colored panels appeared to float into the black sky. Smith happily pulled these light panels away from their desert home and into the MOAH to enable him to strictly focus the eye on pure color. His usual mode of working with light is from the inside-out, meaning he imbues his objects with light from within. Now, the interaction of color occurs as colors reflect and mingle on the gallery walls, washing the gallery in shifting changing light and color. Lucid Stead: Four Windows and the Doorway provides a direct path to the human sensory system, and the installation itself takes on human physicality, as if the color is breathing light into the participant. Smith is concerned with time and the ephemeral nature of life. In the past was Lucid Stead. In the present is: Lucid Stead: Four Windows and the Doorway, a bridge to the future where Smith will take re-site a monumental installation into the landscape, where the Southern California desert and the purity of his solar powered light panels interact seamlessly. Phillip K. Smith III received his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design. From his Indio, California studio he continues to push the boundaries and confront the ideas of modernist design. Drawing inspiration form the rigidity of the Bauhaus movement in its pure shapes, colors and forms, with the reductive geometries of minimalism and the optic sensation of light and color, Smith III attempts to resolve the complex challenge of finding a natural state of life and spirit within these ideological constrictions. Commissioned to create more than a dozen monumental public art works in the last 5 years in Kansas City, Nashville, Oklahoma City, Arlington, VA, Phoenix and several sites in California, Smith has enjoyed rapid success with a 2008 feature in the Art in America Annual Review. In addition to these larger scaled works, Smith continues to work on an ever-growing list of smaller scaled works for private collections. Karl Benjamin (December 29, 1925 – July 26, 2012) Born in Chicago, Karl Benjamin began his undergraduate studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in 1943. Interrupted by service in the US Navy during WWII, Benjamin resumed his studies at Southern California's University of Redlands in 1946. Graduating in 1949 with a BA degree in English literature, history and philosophy, Benjamin began his career as a teacher with no intention of becoming an artist. However, his relocation to Claremont California in 1952, shortly after he had begun "playing" with paint in 1951, galvanized his career path. Though he continued to teach in public schools and, later to great acclaim, for Pomona College, the artist's work blossomed amid the lively art, design and architecture scene in Los Angeles in the mid twentieth Century. Numerous gallery showings of his work during the 1950s culminated in 1959 with his inclusion in Los Angeles County Museum of Art's ground-breaking exhibition "Four Abstract Classicists: Karl Benjamin, Lorser Feitelson, Frederick Hammersley and John McLaughlin." The exhibition garnered national attention along with the creation of a moniker for Benjamin's meticulously orchestrated color and form: Hard Edge Painting. Subsequently Benjamin's work was included in the exhibit Purist Painting traveling to Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse and the Columbus Museum of Art. The Whitney Museum included his work in Geometric Abstraction in America. Museum of Modern Art (NY) also featured the artist in their watershed exhibit The Responsive Eye. Benjamin was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Grant for Visual Arts in 1983 and 1989. His work has been featured in numerous exhibitions and is included in the public collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, Israel; Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; Seattle Art Museum, WA; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY among others. Benjamin taught for many years at Pomona Valley institutions and was named Professor Emeritus at Pomona College. Dion Johnson: Light Sequence – Aquarium, 2013 Dion Johnson is activating the Education Gallery with an animated video projection of slowly evolving abstract fields of color, stripes and architectural forms. This is a site specific work of art that Dion has created exclusively for MOAH. Mr. Johnson imagines the projection as a moving painting that draws inspiration from how he senses and experiences the environment. From observing shadows stretching across his living room floor, watching the curvature of the freeway interchange while driving to his studio, and seeing the Southern California light filtering through urban structures, Light Sequence – Aquarium holds a full range of associations and perceptual cues that percolate as the video animation unfolds. Dion Johnson received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Ohio State University and his Master of Fine Arts from Claremont Graduate University. He exhibits nationally with solo shows in museums and galleries across California, New York, Florida, Ohio and Texas. He lives and works in Los Angeles. Innovations 29th Annual All-Media Juried Art Exhibition Highlighted in the 29th Annual All Media Exhibit are 107 pieces created by 73 talented High Desert Artists. The entries were judged by Southern California artist Ray Turner, an American artist known primarily for his portrait and landscape painting and award winning sculptor Sarah Perry who currently resides in Tehachapi. All work in this exhibition was produced in the past three years and has not previously been shown at the Museum of Art & History. All forms of artistic media, including, but not limited to, painting, photography, and mixed-media were welcomed. The award winners were chosen by the esteemed judges with aditional awards given by community members and City leaders. Best of Exhibition • 1st (Best of) Christine Kline - Origins • 2nd (Best of) Stevie Love - Paint Thing 2 • 3rd (Best of) Antoinette de Paiva - Afterthought Series #5 Minors: • 1st Place Hanna Creech (age 13) - The Peacock • 2nd Place Elizabeth Engeda (age 10) - Northern Cardinal • 3rd Place Jack Kozlovsky (age 7) - Jack's Magic Dragon Beryl Amspoker Award • Tina Dorff - Portrait of the Young Countess Deirdra Rose Lakes and Valleys Art Guild Award • Sal Vasquez - Harris Vineyards Harvesters Dean Webb Memorial Photography Award, Presented by the Lancaster Photography Association • Betsy Batish - Unhitched Mayor’s Award • Tina Dille – E.B. City Manager’s Award • Michael Evans – Steampunk Top Hat Director’s Award • Regis R. Gagnon – Cotton Belt on the Outskirts Curator’s Award • Anita Ray – Loose Ends Honorable Mentions: • Nay Schuder – Crackin’ Up #1 • Michael Evans – Steampunk Media Player •Antoinette de Paiva - Afterthought Series #7 • Thaddeus Grzelak - Plein Air - Old Gold Mine • Frank Dixon - The Machine Age • Dennis Borak - Field of Sun Flowers • Dennis Borak - Artist Considering a Painting • Susan Cunningham - Dreaming of Zion • Nancy Scherich - Bitter Sweet • Hossen Mofarrah - Particles in the Air • Ralph Richeson - The Circus Came to Town • Christine Kline - Drowning Man • Jarnold - Meat Head • Tina Dorff - Deirdra & Jacques • Dennis Adams – Old Barn • Cynthia F. McConnell - Voids • Karyl Newman - Inter-Airspace Velvet • Stevie Love - Paint Thing 3 • Bruce McAllister - Sarah Says (As Neptune Swims) • Katherine Shannon - Kidding Around Smith View or Download the Colorimetry Exhibition Catalog by clicking on the cover image or here.

Up Vanity Various Artists https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlmaofojzy8 Justin Bower: Thresholds Roni Stretch: Not Vanity Austin Young: To Be Determined / TBD The Musical Shana Mabari: Diametros Petals Laura Larson: Grace and Glory Leigh Salgado: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Tina Dorff: Human Story Told Ted Meyer: Scarred for Life Justin Bower: Thresholds San Francisco native Justin Bower paints his subjects as de-stabilized, fractured post-humans, a person or entity that exists in a state beyond being human, in a nexus of interlocking spatial systems. His paintings juxtapose how individuals define themselves in this digital and virtual age and the impossibility of grasping such a slippery notion. Bower compares his use of paint to an instrument of dissection and inquiry into the idea of the body as an original prosthetic subject. Flesh acts as the complex layer of biological boundary from externalized technologies; all the while revealing that the same externalized technologies are already inside the body. Bower paints his subjects in a world where humanity and materiality are interwoven symmetrically, where the purity of human nature is being replaced by new forms of creation and evolution. His paintings are influenced by today’s culture that privileges patterns of information by using optical art configurations as the context for most of his artwork. Bower’s paintings open a dialogue of the destabilizing effect and trauma technology has on the individual. He shows this through the technique of doubling features - multiple eyes, spliced noses, melting mouths – and a whiplash-like motion invoked in his abstract expressionist process. Bower received a Bachelor Degree in Art and Philosophy from the University of Arizona and his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from Claremont Graduate University. Since receiving his MFA, Bower’s work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Ace Gallery in Beverly Hills, Unix Gallery in New York City, and has been part of a group show at Patrick Painter and many international exhibitions. Bower has been the recipient of several awards, among those the Feitelson Fellowship Grant and the Joan Mitchell Award. His artwork has been published by Art Forum, New American Paintings, American Art Collector, Bl!sss Magazine, Modern Painters, Artillery Magazine and the LA Times. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuovaI7qgs4 Ronic Stretch: Not Vanity Roni Stretch has pioneered the dichromatic process, exploring photorealistic under-paintings that emerge ghost-like from a void of color. His dichromatic oil paintings are meticulously created by executing a layering process whereby two different colors are alternately applied and built up over many weeks. The subjects play against a sharply lined border intended to ground each painting in the physical and force a visual meditation. The image is not so much painted over as optically embedded within the multiple layers of the alternating colors. Stretch’s work is a lesson in contradictions: photorealism and abstraction, light and dark, reality and altered states, smooth and rough textures all ultimately leading to an emotional experience. British artist Roni Stretch grew up in St. Helens, Mereyside, England where he attended the 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. Austin Young: To Be Determined / TBD The Musical “I am fascinated by identity. Who am I? Who are you? How do we arrive at these conclusions? We all have stories about growing up, making friends and our first loves. These experiences form our relationship to the world and ourselves. Our fears and experiences solidify our identities and make them real. If our identity becomes fixed, it can keep us in a box. Some of us never stop wishing we were something other or more. I continually talk myself out of doing things. For example, I always wanted to make a musical but my fear got in the way. So, recently, I decided to just set up the dates and announce it. I invited the public to join in for a series of workshops where they shared their stories and experiences around the topic of identity and ‘coming of age.’ The call was heard by many amazing people and LA-based artists as we collectively placed emphasis on radical authenticity and spontaneous creativity. For this show at MOAH, I recreate my studio in the gallery, showing behind-the-scenes footage, intimate coming of age stories, notes, photos and final edited scenes from the musical in progress. In short video interviews, participants delve into the stories that formed their identities then sing or act them out in this unusual and revolutionary musical experience.” -Austin Young Austin Young is a photographer and trans media artist. Young has been documenting pop and sub-culture since 1985 through portraits. Young confuses personality and identity issues in confrontational and unapologetic image-making of people who often mix gender roles or otherwise confound stereotypical constraints of socially-constructed identities. In addition to photography and filmmaking, Young is co-founder of Fallen Fruit, a contemporary art collective established in 2004 that uses fruit as a material for projects that investigate the hyper-synergistic qualities of collaboration. Young's video works explore pop-culture, celebrity, gender and identity. TBD The Musical explores the new realm of performance, installation, video and public participatory art. Through a series of workshops, Young invites the public to co-create this project alongside him, sharing stories and experiences around the topic of identity and “coming of age.” In turn, he creates an ongoing, experimental, collaborative musical that emphasizes radical authenticity and spontaneous creativity. Young brings individuals who are pushing boundaries in their respective disciplines together, including musicians, dancers, fashion designers, singers, drag queens and the public. As new collaborations take place, scenes are added to TBD The Musical , as well as the documentary and exhibition of behind the scenes footage, photography and notes. Shana Mabari: Diametros Petals Shana Mabari is an American contemporary artist working in Los Angeles. Working through the intersections of art, science and technology, Mabari orchestrates light, reflection, color contrast and geometry with the intent to play with and expand the reality and experience of physical space. Through her sculptures, installations and environments, she investigates the ways in which worldly stimuli and phenomena are absorbed and processed through sensory and visual perceptions. Mabari is part of the continuum of the Light and Space movement, which originated in California in the 1960s. Science has fueled her artwork, leading her to collaborate with world renowned scientists at the Institute of Neuroinformatics in Zurich, Switzerland. Shana Mabari was born in Los Angeles, California. She has traveled extensively and lived in Paris, Northern India and Tel Aviv. Her education includes studies at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris and Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. She holds a patent for the design of “Dynamic Spatial Illusions,” a portable version of a visual and sensory experimental environment. She is a recipient of the Center for Cultural Innovation ARC grant. She has exhibited work in the United States and internationally. Laura Larson: Grace and Glory Laura Larson grew up in Chicago surrounded by the influence of the Chicago Imagists, a group of artists that were known for representational work that drew references outside of fine art. Her work reflects the dual interests of story-telling and theatrical production – the building blocks for her consistent interest in sculptural installations and narrative Tableau. In the late 1970s Larson moved to Los Angeles where she became a member of a collaborative group of women and men, working with Judy Chicago to create The Dinner Party , a controversial, ground–breaking feminist art piece rendered in porcelain, china painting, textiles and embroidery, recognizing significant women in history who were forgotten or under–recognized. Over the last 10 years Larson’s work has touched on two topics: our relationship between nature and our animal co-inhabitants; and investigations of the cultural, historical and spiritual through lines of the female trinity: mind, body and spirit. Completed through three different bodies of work, Grace and Glory will be the final part of Larson’s trinity. Larson states: “This serial investigation examines the cultural, historical and spiritual through–lines of the effects of religion – Christianity in particular – on women. Its genesis was my reaction to the Getty Center’s exhibition “Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture.” While Bernini’s gorgeous busts glorified popes, cardinals and kings, I wanted to re-imagine the exhibit by flipping the gender to female – shifting the focus from power and piety to grace and glory, celebrating historical (mythical) women who have shown grace under pressure and who have been bestowed or sought glory for their actions. This series has been created in opposition to the Baroque artists’ “dazzling virtuosity” and their ability to create a "speaking likeness" from the intractable medium of stone. The faces of these women are made of immobile Styrofoam wig heads. However, each head is treated in a different way to exemplify their life’s situation using various mediums such as paint, modeling epoxy/resin, paper mache, fabric, leather, or beads. The bust in general personifies the woman in a symbolic, rather than expressive way. The materials used have associative powers such as black and white leather gloves, which become hair and headpiece for the Queen of Sheba, and handkerchiefs collected over a lifetime, which become a bouquet of roses for Aimee Semple McPherson." Laura Larson has exhibited her work extensively throughout Southern California, and has shown her work internationally. In 2004, she received the Artist Resource for Completion Grant from the Durfee Foundation. Larson graduated from Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin, receiving a dual Bachelor of Arts degree in fine art and theatre arts. Leigh Salgado: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Leigh Salgado’s sculptural drawings incorporate an organic yet precise process through cutting paper by hand and burning some parts of the composition along with the use of ink and paint. These labor-intensive finished pictures are of abstracted imagery that occasionally morph into recognizable subject matter including lace, lingerie, netting, fabric, clothing patterns and original woven abstractions. Salgado’s current work includes an ongoing interest in subjects and forms that have associations developed during her girlhood and womanhood. Salgado states: “What drives me: Attraction to patterns, fabric, fashion objects, elaborate ornamentation and respect for labor. My work is about persistence in spite of the impossibility of perfection. My memories, experiences and women who have formed my worldview are present in the work.” Leigh Salgado received her Bachelor’s Degree in painting, sculpture and graphic arts from the University of California, Los Angeles and her Master’s Degree in clinical art therapy from Loyola Marymount University. After practicing art therapy professionally for several years, she renewed her fine art studies at Santa Monica College of Design in Art and Architecture. Her artwork has been exhibited nationally. Tina Dorff: Human Story Told “Some emotive narratives in these paintings can be quite obvious, but most are undercurrents of a story told by the figure. My painting themes run the gamut from darkly emotive to lovely trickeries on canvas. Watch the playful antics of the fuzzy headed girl naked and chatting with a figurine. If you listen carefully the woman in the blue shirt will tell you her special tale. There is a woman standing on a half shell reaching out to you because the self-shame is killing her. Turn again and you see a naked nymph lazing in the grass under the breeze of a fan. The black sweaty torso of a soldier reaching up to the skies in despair on those awful human decisions made. Then there is the 21st century knock off of an Ingres countess with her black lace dress and blank stare.” – Tina Dorff Tina Dorff’s oil paintings delve into emotional narratives taken from personal experiences and external observations. She uses canvas as a journal and release. Growing out of years of emotional turmoil and disappointments, Dorff uses her work to access emotions and establish a bridge to the outside world. Most of her models are close friends or family, Dorff feels fortunate to have models with a sharp insight into painting. For her, the relationship between the model and painter is powerful and to be cherished, she states “there is always a story behind my faces.” She hopes that when viewers take in her art their sense of reality will be altered for that viewing time and that they can relate to it. She states “I tell my stories through the painted figure for you to interpret...and now it is your story.” Dorff studied at the Art Institute of Philadelphia, Hussian School of Art and received an Associate of Science degree from Temple University. Her work has been exhibited across the United States and internationally. She currently lives and works in Lancaster. Ted Meyer: Scarred for Life Ever since he was a small child with a serious illness, Ted Meyer has mixed art and medical images as a way to understand his experiences. Through his art he highlights the emotional impact of pain and healing on everyday people—patients, families and medical personnel. When medical treatments improved his own situation as an adult, Meyer began to work with other survivors of traumatic health issues. Scarred for Life is a multi-faceted project that includes printing on paper from the subject’s body, interviewing the participants about their experiences and photographing the process. The resulting, ever-expanding, presentation of monoprints, narratives and photographs has received press coverage from the New York Times, USA Today and the Chicago Tribune . Scarred for Life, has been exhibited nationally, including at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C., New York University School of Medicine, Bravard Museum of Art in Melbourne, Florida, the Museum of Art and Culture in New Rochelle, New York, and at Sierra College in Rocklin, California and Biola University in La Mirada, California. Meyer has lectured on art and health at Yale University, New York University and UCLA. Ted Meyer is an artist and designer living in Los Angeles. He earned his Bachelor’s degree at Arizona State University. He is owner of and principal designer at Art Your World, a full-service design studio. He is currently an Artist in Residence at UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine and Visiting Scholar at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C. Ted has exhibited his paintings and photographs internationally, including at the Chicago Art Institute, the United Nations in New York City, in Osaka, Japan and Istanbul Turkey. December 5, 2015 - January 24, 2016 Back to list

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