Search Results

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

< Back May 13 - August 20 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. Previous Next

< Back January 23 – May 9, 2021 Golden Hour: Images from the Museum of Art & History's Permanent Collection features photographs from the Museum Project, a philanthropic group of artists known for their pioneering of experimental techniques and unique styles. Conceptualized by Robert von Sternberg, the group sought to give back to museums and other institutions that supported contemporary and developing photographers throughout the years. Along with like-minded artists such Darryl Curran, Sheila Pinkel and Nancy Webber, the artists of the Museum Project donated nearly 4,000 prints to the permanent collections of over 100 institutions and museums throughout the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France and Australia. These photographs are excellent examples of the wide range of processes, concepts and themes that Californian photographers explore. Other non-Museum Project artists that will be on display from the permanent collection are Osceola Refetoff, Naida Osline, and Thomas McGovern. Previous Next

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

< Back May 9 - December 27, 2020 Featuring artwork by: Robin Rosenthal Jane Szabo Nuri Amanatullah Clovis Blackwell Video installations by: Edwin Vasquez Art in Residence A.I.R Special exhibition: Collaborate and Create First People, First Communities The Lancaster Museum of Art & History (MOAH) and the Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation (LMPAF) invite the public to its newest exhibition #CountMeIn , a celebration of the community recognizing their value in civic life through engagement and education on the topic of the 2020 United States Census. Every decade, the U.S. Census counts every resident in the nation and uses the data to allocate billions of dollars in federal funds to local communities and determines the number of seats each state receives in the House of Representatives. The neighborhoods surrounding the museum have historically have been undercounted, and therefore underrepresented and underfunded, due to various barriers such as education, languages spoken, poverty level, houselessness, race, immigration status and levels of trust. #CountMeIn began in summer of 2019 and is an ongoing project that builds on community trust by embedding local Artists-in-Residence to lead various art workshops, community gatherings, artist interactions, candid portrait photography sessions and creative place-making activities with the overall goal of encouraging the community to participate in the 2020 Census. The selected Artists-in-Residence directly reflect the communities in which they live and work and provide opportunities for other community members to be seen and heard through public exhibition. Artists-in-Residence for #CountMeIn include creative-placekeeper and Lead Artist for the project, Robin Rosenthal; fine art photographer, Jane Szabo; artist and blogger, Edwin Vazquez; muralist and illustrator, Nuri Amantullah; and the artist collective, Art In Residence. Artworks in the #CountMeIn exhibition at Lancaster MOAH stem from collaborative efforts between the Artists-in-Residence and members of the community, featuring crocheted portrait-embedded wall-hangings created in partnership with needle-crafters living at the Antelope Valley Senior Center and three Housing Corporation of America locations, interviews with #CountMeIn participants, and As a Day, a Decade -- an immersive aural/visual installation created by Art In Residence members Nathanial Ancheta, Dave Martin and Janice Ngan. In addition, the exhibition boasts a mural by local artist Nuri Amanatullah, screen-printed works by Clovis Blackwell, and a historic look at the Native Americans as the first communities of the Antelope Valley presented by anthropologist Dr. Bruce Love. Collaborate and Create, a collection of collaborative artworks by Kipaipai Fellows emphasizing the benefit of networking and community, will also be on display. 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 in educating, encouraging and empowering residents to participate in the Census! The Artists of #CountMeIn , A 2020 Census Project Discussion Saturday, June 6, 2020 | 1 PM Join the artists of #CountMeIn, A 2020 Census Project, for a lively discussion on the importance of trust, the census, and the power of the art to activate a community! Moderated by Shana Nys Dambrot. Panelists include: Robin Rosenthal, Lead Artist-in-Residence Jane Szabo, Artist-in-Residence Edwin Vasquez, Artist-in-Residence Nuri Amanatullah, Artist-in-Residence Nathaniel Ancheta, Artist-in-Residence David Edward Martin, Artist-in-Residence Janice Ngan, Artist-in-Residence Robert Benitez, Art Program Coordinator Cassandra Morga, Antelope Valley Partners for Health #CountMeIn , A 2020 Census Project, is supported by the California Arts Council and the California Community Foundation. The Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation is a member of the #WeCountLA coalition of non-profit and community-based organizations which seeks to increase participation in the census. Previous Next

< Back February 11 - April 16, 2017 Charles Hollis Jones Chris Francis David Jang Lisa Schulte Lori Cozen-Geller Sedi Pak Terry Cervantes Charles Hollis Jones: Fifty Chairs, Fifty Years Throughout the art world, Charles Hollis Jones is known as the “King of Lucite”, and for good reason—he has continued to redefine the use of acrylic in furniture for over fifty years. Words such as innovative, craftsmanship, luxury, and transformation populate descriptions of Jones’ work, beloved by classic Hollywood icons such as Lucille Ball and Frank Sinatra, in addition to several prominent architects, designers, and collectors. At the age of sixteen, Jones founded his firm, CHJ Designs. Following his high school graduation two years later, he moved from Bloomington, Indiana to Los Angeles, pursuing his already successful career as a furniture maker. Although Jones is known today for his stunning and buoyant acrylic designs, his earliest pieces were constructed primarily in brass, earning him his first art-world nickname, “The Chrome Kid.” Jones has said that he was initially attracted to acrylic due to its aesthetic similarity to glass and facile manipulation, which allowed him, in some of his earliest artistic endeavors, to reinterpret the Bauhaus designs he admired into a translucent medium. Lauded for its malleability, plastic has long been utilized in everything from the medical field to the fashion industry, but people do not generally think of it as an artisanal material. In this respect, Jones is unique, a pioneer, and a visionary. In his elegant furniture designs, plastics are elevated from their commercial status into the realm of fine art. Where other makers saw a basic material, he saw a miracle of alchemy, which needed to be respected and understood in order to be utilized to its fullest potential. While glass merely reflects light, acrylics allow each ray to pass through the material, carrying it in such a way that, when utilized effectively, it appears to be illuminated from within. Fascinated by this transmissivity, Jones quickly became enamored with the alchemical intricacies of acrylics, mastering the material in ways that his predecessors had not. In his skilled hands, the joints marrying multiple planes of Lucite together disappear, while the light that passes through is embraced and amplified, resulting in an unequivocal oeuvre of design. Charles Hollis Jones has received many awards for his craftsmanship and has been recognized by the Smithsonian Institute for his pioneering use of Lucite. In 1971, the German government presented Jones with a Brilliance of Design award for his Edison lamp, while the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors gave him an award for his Metric Line tables in 1976. In 1992, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation honored the artist with the Carl Beam Sculpture Award, recognizing his volunteer work on behalf of the American Society of Interior Designers. The Pacific Design Center awarded Jones with the 2004 Product Designer of the Year Award , recognizing his lifetime of achievements. In 2007, Design Within Reach hosted a retrospective of his work at its flagship locations in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills. Jones’ work has also been published in numerous magazines, such as Architectural Digest, Desert Living, Designers West, Elements, Hollywood Life, Home and Garden, Modern Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. Chris Francis: Versatility--A Five Year Survey Chris Francis is a self-taught shoemaker and designer whose life experiences are often reflected in his art. He spent most of his young adult life traveling throughout the United States on freight trains, working on ships, and in carnivals, theater houses, and cabarets. Francis’ eclectic personal story is infused into a collection of work that is as diverse as the artist’s job history—he has hung from skyscrapers, worked as a chimney sweep and even found employment as a tree topper. Inspired by everything from the punk movement to architecture, industrial design and the Bauhaus, characteristics of Francis’ work often include bold color, a strong silhouette, sharp lines and simplicity. Each piece is created in-house, allowing for the artist to maintain complete control over the design process. He often works with found materials, which are experimental and alternative to traditional shoemaking. In keeping with the spirit of experimentation, many of the pieces in this collection were inspired by the Bauhaus School of Art and Design in Germany, made famous in the early twentieth century for combining craft and engineering with a variety of fine art mediums, including sculpture, painting, and architecture. Francis has stated that he operates his own workshop under many of the same principles that drove the Bauhaus movement, seeking to fuse fine art, architecture, fashion, and design into one act, thus creating shoes that are both beautiful and functional, as all of the artistic disciplines invoked are valued as equals. Francis’ designs are worn regularly by celebrities and musicians, and have been featured in publications such as Vogue, Metropolis, and Ornament . He has exhibited in several museums, including Palm Springs Art Museum, Architecture and Design Museum , and a solo exhibition at the Craft & Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles . He was also invited to exhibit as an artist at FN PLATFORM in Las Vegas, wherein he moved his entire workshop into the venue to act as a display. David B. Jang: Deflection Production Both an artist and an inventor, David B. Jang is known for his imaginative kinetic installations, which employ hacked consumer electronics and subverted household appliances. These vestiges of technology, with their life’s instructions literally coded into their motherboards, are the building blocks of Jang’s practice. By deconstructing, re-programming, and reconstituting industrial and commercial castoffs, Jang creates immersive works that are, as described by art critic Peter Frank, “at once hilarious, frightening, charming, and strangely reassuring.” Ultimately, Jang’s work is about survival, or what he refers to as “life tactics.” His installations explore the short life expectancy of cast-off materials and their relationship to organic mortality. Rooted in a playful critique of capitalism combined with a thirst for novelty, Jang shifts attention away from the product, toward process and consumer. If property ownership is a pathway to the “American Dream,” Jang’s intention is to subvert, dissect, comprehend, and redirect property to verify its potential and truth, or expose its lie. His work is engaging and subtly provocative, confronting viewers with their complacent habit of experiencing the environment indirectly, through a version of the world that humans have contrived. In Jang’s work, viewers must first lose themselves to find themselves. Through his ongoing investigations, the artist undertakes a documentation of the industrial era, not by representation, but by reusing and reworking existing technologies, and through them, exposing their inherent human and fallible elements. David B. Jang has exhibited both nationally and internationally at several museums and galleries, including: the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Laguna Art Museum; Nagasaki Museum of Fine Art, Japan; Paju Kyoha Art Center, Korea; Shone-show Gallery, China; Heritage Art Center, Philippines; Locust Projects, Miami; AAF, Germany, the Netherlands, and Canada . He has been featured in several publications, such as Miami New Times, Wall Street International, Huffington Post Arts, Art Ltd., Korean American Magazine, ARTPULSE, Artillery, KCET Artbound, Coagula Art Journal, California Contemporary Art Magazine, and Art Week LA. Lisa Schulte: Full Circle Transfixed by the act of bending and shaping light through mixing different gases, glasses, and fluorescents in her studio, Lisa Schulte says that she sees everything in neon. “My love for ‘light’ started in my late teens,” the artist states. “I had a friend who was a DJ at a disco. I was underage, so I would get in under the guise of ‘working the lights.’ I loved it! I discovered neon lights in the early 80s and never veered from that peculiar source.” Self-taught, Schulte’s work combines her experience in the film and television industry with her love of fine art. For the past thirty years, she has owned and operated Nights of Neon, a full-service fabrication studio, while also focusing on her own art practice, which, until recently, has marked a divergence from the artist’s commercial neon work. For several years, Schulte’s sculptural works consisted solely of different temperatures of white light, woven throughout amorphous pieces of dried wood, while the custom signage that she produced for Nights of Neon utilized traditional applications of the medium—bright signs and colorful lights. The former comprise the artist’s Essence of Time series, a group of meditative and painstakingly crafted sculptures imbued with symbolism, meant to transcend the infinite changes of the natural landscape and the journey of the human experience. Recently, however, Schulte’s work has been reinvigorated as she returned to the origins of her practice, producing a body of sculptures that are more free-form in spirit and alive with the full spectrum of color. Somewhat frustrated and seeking to propel her practice in a new direction, Schulte says that she began making random piles of the colorful neon words that she had created in her studio. This intuitive, action-based approach fostered the series of sculptures currently on display, which mark both a divergence from and return to the artist’s original practice. “Neon is a unique and remarkable medium,” Schulte states, “It does not operate at a 2D or even 3D level. It is multi-dimensional luminescence; it is light extracted from air—and manifested into form.” Lisa Schulte has shown her work at several museums and galleries, including: the Museum of Neon Art, Glendale; Scion Gallery, Culver City; Butterfield’s on Sunset Blvd.; Broadway Art Space, Santa Monica; Joanne Artman Gallery, Santa Monica; Rebel Ark Studio, Hollywood; Hinge Modern Gallery, Culver City; Fabian Castanier Gallery in collaboration with graffiti artist Risk , Studio City; Art Project Paia, Maui . She was also commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to create a sculpture based on Diane von Furstenberg’s handwriting for the museum’s Feel Like a Woman exhibit. Lori Cozen-Geller: The Edge In her practice, Lori Cozen-Geller looks to capture the emotions of the heart and mind. This process is kinetic, beginning with a feeling that evolves into a powerful emotion which is then transformed into art. By freezing these emotions and translating them into concrete form, Geller is able to visualize the strength and meaning that lies within the created piece, the artist’s passion manifested as art. The feelings themselves dictate the specifics of each piece, such as color and finish, which represent the power of the emotion that each work is born out of. Other details, such as the decision to use sharp angles or soft curves, are informed by the nature of the emotions represented. The Edge represents a visual culmination of the moment when a split decision is about to be made, which will forever alter one’s fate. A barrage of emotions fuses together to spark the end result: the decision. The scale of each cube along with its finish represents the power of the decision at hand. “Although my art is an expression of my own personal feelings, these emotions are universal to all mankind,” Geller states, “Human beings share the same emotional palette even though each of us has a differing set of life circumstances. The energy of life is the fuel that ignites my passion to express.” Lori Cozen-Geller has shown her work at several museums and galleries, both nationally and internationally, including: Madison Gallery, La Jolla, Russeck Gallery, San Francisco, BGH Gallery, Bergamot Station, George Billis Gallery, New York, Phoenix Art Museum, Fellini Gallery, Berlin, The Santa Monica Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Sedi Pak: A Moment in Time From very early on in my life I have observed nature closely—the shape of a tree, the shape of a leaf, the veins on that leaf, how it all comes together—nature at its most basic form. I study the light, texture and patterns of organic life. I find a rhythm in nature and strive to replicate it in my art. I am fascinated by the harmony and disharmony between man and nature. I draw most of my inspiration from this, how our actions impact our future. What we do sets off a chain of events, hard to predict or control. -Sedi Pak A contemporary painter and sculptor, Sedi Pak has spent a lifetime developing her personal approach to the visual arts. After painting professionally for eighteen years the artist began to explore three-dimensional mediums. This led to the creation of her recent body of work, comprised of environmental installations and sculptures that capture the visceral dimensionality of the natural world. Though seemingly frozen in space, Pak’s large-scale wooden sculptures evoke movement and appear to defy gravity as their carved, spiraling curves illustrate the science of nature and its continual transformation, a moment in time memorialized like the rings in a tree: silent, but present. Sedi Pak has shown her work in museums and galleries both nationally and internationally, including: Galerie Metanoia, Paris; Galerie 825, Los Angeles; MB Abram Galleries, Los Angeles . She participated as an exhibiting artist for Project Heart: Uganda’s annual Fundraising multimedia Art Benefit from 2010 to 2013 and has been featured on Huffington Post’s Arts and Culture page. Terry Cervantes: Lunatopia Terry Cervantes combines her skills as a production potter with her talent as a visual artist, creating pieces that are at once beautiful, whimsical, and often functional. She draws inspiration from Asian and Native American storytelling, surrealism, and the natural world. In regards to her creative drive, the artist states, “I fulfill my desire to paint with my need to play in clay.” The pieces that comprise Lunatopia are inspired by images from a surrealist fantasy of Cervantes’ imagination. Relating her story, the artist writes: Somewhere in the universe, in a different dimension, there is a world where only a moon illuminates the sky…The many faces of the moon govern this magical world. It isn’t based on time, but rather emotions and feelings of mad devilry, happiness, glee, pain, and sorrow. The moon and the eyes of this world have an affinity for each other—as the moon’s face changes its demeanor from young to old, and from male to female, the eyes look up in wonder, sorrow, surprise, and awe. Nature glows like bleached bones, insects scurry in the moonlight, and all are attracted to the vibrations of the light. Things become amiss: fish grow feet and run and dance with skeletons in the radiance of perpetual night. Teapots come to life and hop along with moonlit, furry foxes. And if you look closely, you can see that the Alligator and Platypus have finally taken the plunge into marriage. Who would have thought! This is the world that Cervantes dreams of as she creates. As a conduit for stories that seem to have emerged from times past, the artist believes that it is her duty to bring these parables to life, so that people may learn of the illuminated world, Lunatopia. Terry Cervantes is a local artist who has spent several years serving her community as a visual arts teacher and has exhibited throughout Southern California. She has won first place and Best in Show at the Antelope Valley Fair in 1984. Her work has also been featured in Rothko Art Magazine. Previous Next

< Back February 8 - April 19, 2020 Solo exhibitions: Laddie John Dill Jay Mark Johnson Kysa Johnson Shana Mabari Ruth Pastine Mary Anna Pomonis Robert Standish Site specific installations Gary Lang Edwin Vasquez Video installation Jeff Frost New Works by Ruth Pastine The Light of Space - A film by Eric Minh Swenson. "These Photos Bend Time and Space—Literally" MICHAEL HARDY on Jay Mark Johnson for WIRED Laddie John Dill Laddie John Dill is a Los Angeles artist whose work focuses on nature by portraying cycles and moments rather than a singular moment in time using light and space. He achieves this by utilizing materials like glass, cement, and pigment as a metaphor. With influences like Rauschenberg, Keith Sonnier, Robert Smithson, Dennis Openheim, and Robert Irwin, Dill has learned to use the physical space around him as opposed to a stationary canvas on an easel. This practice results in a magnificent scene of candescent light and sand that envelopes the viewer, entering a form of metamorphosed reality. Contained Radiance Lancaster demonstrates his use of space as his canvas and distributes light creating a dreamlike, ethereal quality. His use of light, sand, and hard materials like aluminum 6061 within the surrounding space each work to create a harmonious and tranquil atmosphere, diffusing light and shadow to create a transcendental experience for the viewer. He portrays the light, sky and earth as parts of a whole that cannot function without the other, bearing witness to the oneness of nature and ultimately demonstrating reasons why nature should be protected and respected. Dill was born in Long Beach, California in 1943. He graduated from Chouinard Art Institute in 1968 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. After graduating, Dill became a printing apprentice and worked closely with established artists, like Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jasper Johns. Laddie John Dill’s work is in the permanent collections of national and international institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, California, Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, California, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, California; High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, The Phillips Collection in Washington DC, Chicago Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois, The Smithsonian in Washington DC, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark, Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples, Italy, Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, California, and Museo Jumex in Mexico City, Mexico. He currently lives and works in Venice, California. Jay Mark Johnson Jay Mark Johnson’s unconventional method of timeline photography examines human space and time, broadening established understandings about linear temporal space. He combines the storytelling abilities of a cinematographer with a handmade German scanning device to create an image that effectively melds the ideas of time and space into a single artwork. In his series of work, the subject remains clear while the background appears to be distorted and in a constant stream of motion and colors altering time and space. Instead of standard photography which favors space and stagnation, these images are captured through the rate of movement of the subject. This project began when Johnson tested the effect of a rotating slit-scan camera had when he stopped the rotation and focused on a fixed area. The camera takes photographs of a single moment represented by a single vertical sliver and over time a series of vertical lines are created of the moving subject resulting in a composite series of strips. Depending on the rate of motion of the subject, the object can appear elongated or crushed. The rendering of reality in conjunction of time into space provides powerful interpretations of the way humans move through time and space. Johnson was born in St. Petersburg, Florida and studied architecture at Tulane University in New Orleans and at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York City. He produced more than fifty series of images that have been presented in more than a hundred solo and group exhibitions. The artworks can be found in the permanent collections of the Riechstag building of the German Bundestag in Berlin, Germany, the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe, Germany, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation in Los Angeles, California, the Phoenix Art Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, the Langen Foundation in Hombroich, Germany, the Peter Klein Museum Kunstwerkin Eberdingen, Germany, the collection of Michael G. Wilson, the Milken Family Foundation in Santa Monica, California, and the Fidelity Corporate Art Collection in Boston, Massachusetts. He currently lives and works in Santa Monica, California. Kysa Johnson Kysa Johnson conceptualizes the microscopic and the macro landscapes of subjects like molecular structures, maps of the universe and diseases transforming them into lively still lifes and landscape paintings. She effectively introduces scientific concepts that would normally be invisible to the naked eye and magnifies its contents, exposing the viewer to the world’s most fundamental parts of our structural universe. Providing meaningful, emotional, and historical relevance, this magnification of the microscopic and macro allows for the viewer to connect to scientific concepts and phenomena providing a newly found appreciation of our reality. Inspired by images gathered from the Hubble telescope and particle accelerators, Faraway, So Close utilizes subatomic particles to portray the cycle of death, rebirth, and transformation from supernovas to the formation of new stars in nebulae. She shows both the fragility and sheer power of these happenings with elegantly placed loops of particle decay to demonstrate the life cycle of these celestial events. The images are made up of hundreds of ink markings contrasted with a stark, black background symbolizing the darkness of space and the universe resulting in a newly realized perspective of life and death. Born in Illinois in 1974, Johnson trained at Glasgow School of Art in Scotland. Johnson has had solo exhibitions at institutions such as The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, Connecticut, The National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, Roebling Hall Gallery in New York City and The Nicolaysen Museum in Casper, Wyoming. She has been featured in a number of group shows including exhibitions at The 2nd Biennial of the Canary Islands, the Tang Museum in Saratoga Springs, New York, The Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, New York, the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, New York, DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts and Standpoint Gallery in London, England. Johnson has created site-specific installations for KK Projects in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2008, Dublin Contemporary in Ireland in 2011 and for the New York Armory Show in 2013. She is a 2003 New York Foundation for the Arts fellow, a 2009 Pollack Krasner Grant recipient and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Shana Mabari Shana Mabari’s work revolves around the use of color, light and geometric forms to relate ideas about visual perception and our surrounding space. Inspired by the Light and Space movement that occurred in the 1960s, she pulls the west coast artistic movement from key figures like Robert Irwin and James Turrell and explores the philosophy of human perception and the highly technical and advanced scientific fields of astrophysics and psychophysics. In Mabari’s series, she records her astronomical observations during the summers of 2018 and 2019 in Ibiza, Spain. Her prints focus on the overlapping views of the same object - the positive and the negative. In this case, the “positive” view would be the object looking up from earth and the “negative” would be the view of the object looking down on earth. She also makes the choice of incorporating aluminum into the drawing to demonstrate aluminum’s historical importance to aerospace and its natural occurrence in space. The prints in Planeta and Stella incorporate mathematical information like right ascension, declination, apparent magnitude, radial velocity, distance from Earth in light years, eccentricity and synodic period into the intricately placed geometric lines and forms demonstrating the inherent beauty and structure in space. 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. In 2016, Mabari’s Astral Challenger, a 20-foot-high rocket-shaped sculpture, was installed in the center of a roundabout at the intersection of Challenger Way and Avenue L in Lancaster, California, in honor of the City’s ongoing achievements in the aerospace industry, and in commemoration of the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster. 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 Artists’ Resource for Completion (ARC) grant. Mabari currently works and lives in Los Angeles, California. Mary Anna Pomonis Mary Anna Pomonis’ work functions at the crossroads of mysticism, abstract painting, geometry, and popular culture. She utilizes a multitude of different source materials including quilt squares, sacred geometry, icons, and abstract painting tapping into themes concerning personal power. She channels these ideas with symbols like crests and banners using historically revered artwork to emotionally move the viewer. Mary Anna Pomonis’ new exhibition Iris Oculus, focuses on the eight point star or temple rosette and is a visual celebration of Inanna, the Mesopotamiam goddess of war and sex. Inspired by images seen of Mother Mary and the Greek Orthodox church, Pomonis joins the sacred images of mandorlas and the architecture of churches to celebrate goddesses of antiquity. Utilizing sacred geometry and geometric forms allows the viewer to transcend beyond the physical realm and invokes the mystic nature of the work. In turn, she creates a space of personal strength connecting to both the artwork and the otherworldly. Pomonis is a Los Angeles based artist. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Illinois and her Master of Fine Arts at the Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Her work has been included in exhibitions at galleries and institutions including the Western Carolina University Museum of Fine Arts in Cullowhee, North Carolina, the Torrance Art Museum in Torrance, California, the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum in St Louis, Missouri, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, California, and I-space Gallery in Chicago, Illinois. Her artwork and projects have appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, Artillery Magazine, Art Forum, Frieze, Hyperallergic, National Public Radio, Whitehot Magazine, Yale University Radio and Artweek. Additionally, her curatorial projects and essays have been featured at commercial and institutional galleries, such as the Vincent Price Art Museum in Monterey Park, California, Whittier College Greenleaf Gallery in Whittier, California, PØST in Los Angeles, California, and the Peter Miller Gallery in Chicago, Illinois. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Art Education at California State University Fullerton. Robert Standish For 12 years, Los Angeles painter Robert Standish had been representing his perceptions of the undercurrents of the human condition through photorealistic paintings of people and blurred lights. Seven years ago, Standish shifted away from constructing life-like replicas based solely on his photos to delving deeper into the unconscious unknown and new psychological depths. His choice to explore pure abstraction unlocked an organic spontaneous paint process of his own making, which is evidenced in both his current Rhythmic series and Anti-Sporadic series . With an interest in metaphysics, Standish uses basic elements like line, color and texture, to represent the dynamism, constance and transcendent flow of the universe. Standish’s lusciously colored, abstract paintings appear to be in the tradition of both American Abstract Expressionism and German Expressionist painting. There are no finite borders or endings in his works as every stroke bleeds into one another in an eternal unbroken chain that seems to extend far beyond any conceivable edge of the canvas. The painting’s many layers, strokes and scrapes of color may thus appear as “beautiful” as anything found in nature that came into existence partly according to a predetermined structure (such as DNA), as well as by way of unpredictable occasions of pure chance and the action of outside forces. Standish taps into a universal and organic language as his traces begin to take on the shape of fractal patterns, earth frequencies and topographies and biorhythmic waves. As he once manipulated the real into the un-real, Standish now transforms the natural into the supernatural. Robert Standish graduated from Antioch University in 1996 with a Bachelors of Art in Psychology. His works can be found in the permanent collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, California, The Weisman Foundation in Los Angeles, California, JP Morgan Chase, the Louis K. Meisel Gallery in New York City, Larry and Marilyn Fields, Patricia Arquette, Bryant Stibel, along with numerous acclaimed private collections. His paintings have been exhibited internationally in galleries and museums, with a recent group show at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California in 2019, and is now excited to share his first solo show with us here at The Lancaster Museum of Art and History. He currently works and lives in Los Angeles, California. Gary Lang Gary Lang is a widely-known Western contemporary abstract painter whose work is centered around color theory and the study of time. Recognized for his intense and brightly colored circles, he combines the precision of his brush, hand, paint and canvas to his hypnotic paintings that simultaneously convey an immense amount of sharpness, gradiance and permeability. In Lang’s Glitterworks, he strays from his iconic circles to a playful rendition of color and space. However, these works still continue to explore Lang’s fascination with effervescent colors and visual consciousness. He uses 120 six inch fabric squares from clothing that he wore while working with dabs of different colors, glitter and reflective film placed into square wooden frames, creating a sense of order in the energetic splashes of color. This contrasts sharply with the carefully controlled, concentric circles one witnesses of previous works. The result challenges traditional ideas about formal composition while exploring Lang’s themes of color and space. Gary lang received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the California Institute of Art and his Masters of Fine Arts from Yale University. In 1975, Lang received a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Barcelona where he studied the architecture of Antoni Gaudí. Lang’s work has been shown in more than seventy solo exhibitions in the United States, Austria, France, Japan, The Netherlands and Spain. His work is also featured in permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, California, Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, California, Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine; the Brooklyn Museum of Art in Brooklyn, New York, Contemporary Art Museum, University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, Detroit Institute of the Arts in Detroit, Michigan, Gemeentemuseum den Haag in The Netherlands, among many others. Gary Lang currently lives and works in Ojai, California. Edwin Vasquez Edwin Vasquez’s work ranges from a multitude of different mediums including photography, digital images, poetry, and mixed-media utilizing art as a vehicle for social commentary about his surrounding environment and human nature. His art expands on his universe and his perspectives on today’s controversial social and political climate tapping into themes about immigration, freedom, and Latinidad. Vasquez’s new body of work combines a logical, mathematical analysis of shapes with digital photographs of space and purposefully deconstructs these images creating a harmonious depiction of the planets and constellations. His art relies on his intense saturation of colors and forms to promote the reactions of the viewer. Vasquez achieves this with the use of fractal geometry, a mathematical approach to describing, measuring, and predicting systems occurring in nature. The installation consists of more than 200 images that Vasquez has manipulated through different software melding various colors and shapes until finding an image that he is satisfied with. The use of fractal shapes, bright colors, abstract shapes, and space function to create structure and pattern inside our tumultuous universe. Vasquez is an artist, photojournalist, published author, and videographer in the Antelope Valley. He has participated in a number of different exhibits including: Refractions, Metro Gallery, Pomona; dA Gallery 16th Annual d’Aztlan: El Movimiento; Hispanic Heritage, Latino Art Museum; Convergence From Pixels to Picote, Colleen Farrell Gallery, Tehachapi; 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, Day of the Dead Installation at the MOAH, and regularly participates in the Museum of Art & History’s Annual All-Media Juried Art Exhibit. He is currently an Artist-in-Residence for #CountMeIn and a Kipaipai Fellow. Jeff Frost Jeff Frost explores time and space through different sub-mediums like painting, photography, video and installation. In combination with short films that traverse themes about creation and destruction. He often works with time-lapse and stop motion to portray notions of science and physics to understand the subtleties of our physical world. This process is achieved by taking photos from several points in time and coupling them into a smooth, chronological flow of spatial events. The use of time-lapse and stop motion is also utilized in the painting of empty, abandoned buildings, capturing a fluid motion of events that appears to have seemingly materialized on their own. In the series, GO HOME , Frost dissects the meaning of “home” through a series of optical illusion paintings in derelict, abandoned structures in southern California. Typically, abandoned locations don’t conjure up feelings associated with the idea of home, Frost challenges the physical representation of home by questioning our emotional alignment with these ideas. “In order to maintain our world view, our emotional alignment must be very precise. One step to the left or right and the illusion breaks.” Frost said. The work examines the physical and ideological notion of what one considers to be a home and explores the frailty of these concepts through the different layers of illusion. Frost was born in Utah and graduated from the University of Eastern Utah in 1998. His work has been shown at his own independent Desert X 2019 parallel installation, Los Angeles Art Association curated by Leslie Jones for LACMA, the Palm Springs Art Museum, the Center for European Nuclear Research (CERN), and LAX. He has been selected for the Nordic LA residency at the ACE Hotel in Palm Springs & the Facebook Artist in Residence program in 2019. He performed a soundart set at the Desert Daze music festival in 2019. He was both a producer and subject of the 2017 Netflix docuseries, Fire Chasers. He has been featured in numerous online publications and TV interviews such as PBS Newshour, TIME Magazine, Artnet, and American Photo. The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) named him one of the best photographers of 2014. U2 and Ladytron have commissioned him for artwork used on tour and in album art. He has spoken at TEDx in Switzerland, the Seattle Art Fair, University of Southern California, Palm Springs Art Museum, Orlando Museum of Art, Snap! Orlando, and photoLA Ruth Pastine Ruth Pastine’s painting practice is an ongoing contemplative and reflective investigation focusing on the austerity of the three complementary color systems which, although seemingly finite, access limitless possibilities. Her paintings evolve in concert with and in juxtaposition to one another furthering the perceptual interaction of color contexts while challenging phenomena of color perception and the relativity of color and light. Working serially, Pastine’s process is informed by the systematic understanding of color developed at the Bauhaus and the 19th Century research of Michel Eugène Chevreul and his discovery of simultaneous contrast. Confronting the unknown is always at the edge of discovery and is the onramp to new work. Pastine’s minimalist color field paintings explore essential tensions that drive her work: presence and absence, surface and depth, materiality and immateriality, the finite and the limitless. She continues to evolve pure abstraction and follow the concepts of Minimalist theory, furthering the phenomenological experience of light and space in her work. Pastine explores the subtle character and nuance of color, color and light are reduced to their most elemental form, working with oil paint on canvas thousands of small brush strokes resolve and appear visually seamless, producing an image that is both objective and dematerialized. Challenging preconceptions about color, her investigations into the manipulation of color, light, and matter question the perceptual experience and redefine the visual field. Born and raised in New York City, Ruth Pastine received her B.F.A. from Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and upon graduating was awarded an independent residency grant to the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She received her M.F.A. from Hunter College of the City University of New York where she focused on painting, color theory and critical studies. In 2009, Pastine began site-specific work with a public commission entitled Limitless, composed of 8 large-scale paintings, installed as two series in the adjoining lobbies of Ernst & Young Plaza, in downtown Los Angeles. In 2014, Ruth Pastine had her first museum survey exhibition titled: Attraction: 1993-2013 at MOAH Lancaster Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA with exhibition catalog essays by Donald Kuspit and Peter Frank, with an appreciation by De Wain Valentine. In 2015, she opened Present Tense: Paintings and Works on Paper 2010-2015 at the CAM Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard, CA. Ruth Pastine’s paintings are included in numerous private and public collections, including the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; SFMOMA San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; MCASD Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles; MOAH Lancaster Museum of Art and History Lancaster; Brookfield Properties, Ernst & Young Plaza, Los Angeles; AXA Art, Cologne, Germany; Qualcomm, San Diego; CIM Group Headquarters, Los Angeles, among others. Ruth Pastine lives and works in Southern California. Previous Next

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

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

< Back July 18 - September 6, 2015 The Art of Toys: A Left Coast Retrospective of Designer Toys Guest Curated by Julie B. & Heidi Johnson Main Gallery Davis & Davis: Planet X Wells Fargo Gallery Moshe Elimelech: Arrangements East Gallery Thumperdome: History of the Pinball Machine South Gallery Woes Martin Mural Main Gallery Teddy Kelly Mural Entry Atrium Hueman Mural Second Floor HCA Presents: Munny on My Mind Marroquin Classroom The Art Of Toys: A Left Coast Retrospective The Art Of Toys: A Left Coast Retrospective: Is the 20+ year evolution of the designer toy, as a celebrated art medium. A thriving movement, art toys are establishing a spot in American art history. So many artists have used this medium as a platform to extend their reach to fans and collectors, without the isolating costs associated with collecting original Pop Surrealism works. Pop Surrealism, also known as Lowbrow Art, was an underground visual art movement originating in Los Angeles around the 1970’s. It reflected the underground street culture and was filled with sarcastic and gleeful humor. Our perspective as curators is from that of the creator, enthusiastic fan, the passionate collector and the cultural instigator. It’s a true collector's paradise with a massive history, that includes some of the biggest players in pop art today. By starting with West Coast popular culture we begin to begin to tell the story of designer toys from a historical, cultural, and social perspective. This exhibit explores a community of 80+ artists, including; Frank Kozik, Mark Ryden, Gary Baseman, Buff Monster, Joe Ledbetter, David Flores, Tristan Eaton, and Luke Chueh. Toys include fan favorites, as well as works significant to the creator’s careers. Many pieces are developed from original artwork that shares the creative process with the viewer. As important as the artists’ creation is the artists relationship with the producers and distributors of art toys. Companies like, Munky King, 3D Retro, Toy Art Gallery, DKE Toys, and Giant Robot to name a few, have built the bridge between art originals and limited editions to create a cultural phenomenon within the larger context of Pop Surrealism/Lowbrow Art. The resulting show brings together an awe inspiring collection of toys, sculpture installations, a variety of artwork including original sketches and molds, site-specific murals, and a curated retail space that is indicative to the world of Art Toys. This is an art toy paradise, sure to tickle just about anybody’s nerd bone. -Julie B. & Heidi Johnson Davis & Davis: Planet X “The search for Planet X began in 1841 as the search for the eighth planet in our solar system and continues today as the search for the eleventh. Planet X was first renamed Neptune, then Vulcan (Urbain Le Verrier's intra-Mercurial planet), then Pluto, then Niburu (Zecharia Sitchin's "12th planet") and now Xena (the recently discovered tenth planet). Planet X is not a real planet, but rather a placeholder for planets yet to be found. In a mathematical sense, it is a variable: X = n + 1, where n is the number of the last discovered planet. Planet X, in its role as the perpetually undiscovered sphere located at an ever-greater distance from the Earth, embodies both our hopes and our fears for the future. Toy spacemen of the late 40s and early 50s combine a pre-Sputnik naiveté about space travel with a cold war paranoia about all things alien. Their art deco space suits feature bell jar helmets and back-slung, oxygen tanks; their elaborate ray guns bulge with deadly, high technology. Because they appeared before the dawn of the Space Age, they don't look like the astronauts we know today and seem to recall a future yet to come. For this series, we photograph these spacemen as they struggle with robots and other technology, with monsters and aliens, and with themselves in the barren, cratered landscape of Planet X .” -Davis & Davis Davis & Davis have collaborated on a variety of photography, video, sculpture and installation projects over the last several years. Their interests include cinema, psychology, pop culture and fringe sciences. Davis & Davis have exhibited at the Riverside Art Museum, the Chelsea Museum of Art, the Ulrich Museum of Art and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, among other venues. Their work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Ulrich Museum of Art, California State University Los Angeles, Cal Polytechnic University Pomona, Cypress College and the Kinsey Research Institute as well as many private collections. Davis & Davis have Masters of Fine Arts degrees in Art/Photography and Media from the California Institute of the Arts. Santa Monica Press published a book of their photographs, Childish Things , in 2004. Moshe Elimelech: Arrangements Moshe Elimelech’s exhibition Arrangements showcases modular acrylic cube paintings that are colorful and interactive. Rectangular cradles house gridded cubes that invite viewers to turn, move and rearrange each piece. Influenced by a background in design and by the modernist art movements of optical and kinetic art, Moshe fuses formal elements of art with play. Elimelech employs elements such as line, color, pattern, texture and tone to create varied designs on each cube that goes into Arrangements. Those cubes in turn, when placed beside others create new designs that could essentially be limitless, when placed at random by each individual that interacts with the artwork. Arrangements allows for viewers to express their unique vision of design aesthetics while at the same time enlivening their experience of paintings that are historically expected to be static. Elimelech states “I paint these abstracted landscapes in a way for people to admire and interpret openly, leaving them visual cues for the play of imagination.” Moshé Elimelech was exposed to the artistic process by observing his father’s technique as a master craftsman. He began his course of study at the Avni Art Institute in Israel and then went on to study at The Polytechnic Institute of Design in Tel Aviv. After two and a half years in the army working as an art director for the Israeli army publication house, Maarachot, Elimelech went on to Paris where he assisted the internationally known artist Yaakov Agam. Elimelech was selected as a contributing artist for the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 and is a recipient of the Windsor Newton award by the Watercolor West Society. In addition to his current studio practice as a fine artist, Elimelech’s design work has been featured internationally, in galleries and museums, such as the Palm Springs Desert Museum, Las Vegas Art Museum, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Korean Cultural Center, Gallery 825, and at the Museum of Contemporary Art; as well as in the museum stores of Museum of Modern Art in New York and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Thumperdome: History of the Pinball Machine The modern pinball machine is a direct descendant of the French bagatelle games of the 1700s, which featured a playfield with wooden pegs, and balls that were introduced into the playfield with a pool cue. The French brought this amusement device to America during the American Revolution when they served as our allies against Great Britain. Here in America, the game further evolved using metal pins instead of dowels and the revolutionary introduction of the shooter rod in the early 1800s. The addition of the coin mechanism in the 1930s allowed people to play their troubles away for a penny and even win back some of their money as these “trade stimulators”, as they were called at the time, started becoming gambling devices. The game resonated with people in the U.S. wanting cheap entertainment through the Great Depression-era economy. At that time most drugstores and taverns in the US operated pinball machines, with many locations quickly recovering the cost of the game. The entire machine was designed to be as eye-catching as possible, in order to attract players and their money; every possible space is filled with colorful graphics, blinking lights and themed objects, and the backglass is usually the first artwork the players see from a distance. Pinball was considered gambling; even the act of winning a replay is still banned in several states to this day. As time went on video games replaced pinball in the market, and manufactures were forced to enhance the technology within the pinball machines to be in competitive. Thumperdome is the historic pinball collection of Amanda Cole and Art Perez located in Pasadena, CA. Both grew up in awe of the game with the silver ball, saving up their quarters to drop into the nearest pinball machine they could find. A chance find of a decaying [Evel Knievel” pinball machine gave Art the opportunity to restore his favorite] childhood machine and start the collection that would grow into Thumperdome. Amanda, who works in technology and art, is an artist/photographer with a background in engineering and together their combined interests and expertise are utilized to restore and rejuvenate machines which they have collected throughout the country. The goal of Thumperdome is to preserve the history, technology, artwork and culture of pinball in America and promote pinball to future generations. Thumperdome houses one of the largest and most diverse private collections of pinball machines in the nation. The ever-rotating collection traverses the development of pinball machines from the early bagatelle-like games of the 1930s, to the introduction of pinball flippers in the 1940s until the 1980s and 90s when the threat of video games finally toppled pinball from the hearts of American fun-seekers. This collection shares the beauty of the machines and the challenge of the games to entertain, educate and captivate a new generation as technologies changed. Aaron Woes Martin Aaron “Angry Woebots” Martin aka “Woes Martin” grew up between the Hawaiian island Oahu and the western United States. He was greatly influenced by Saturday morning cartoons, kung fu and comic book cultures, which led him to be involved in the process of creation in some form. His strong passion for toys provided the avenue to design his own resin sculpture with partner Palmetto of Silent Stage Gallery, and through KidRobots Dunny platform. His focal medium is acrylic paintings on wood and canvas. Using minimal colors with detailed character design, these paintings are usually composed of aggravated pandas or bears conveying extreme emotions. The pandas tend to represent the story of struggle, humble beginnings and rolling with the punches. From Hawaii to the mainland U.S. and across the globe he continues to leave his mark, connecting with other artists and other cultures. His creations have been shown in galleries throughout the United States, Southeast Asia, South Pacific and Europe. Woes has worked with many companies like Converse, Disney and Samsung, as well as been part of multiple publications for the art, designer toy and hip hop communities. His custom vinyl toys, Resin figures and collaborations have been showcased at Comic-Con San Diego, Comic-con New York, Designer Con Pasadena and Singapore Toy Con. Teddy Kelly Teddy Kelly is an artist and illustrator whose life and designs are the product of converging cultural influences. He grew up in Mazatlan, Mexico. He has been creating art since he could pick up a pen, drawing influence from both the Disney characters he’d see during childhood visits to the United States and his perspective of the immigrant-influenced culture of his hometown. Kelly grew up immersed in the subculture of surfing and skateboarding, inspired from a young age by the skateboard art that defined this culture. He moved to the United States after high school in search of an education, and fortunately also found a mentor and friend who taught him how to conceptualize his ideas. Teddy was awarded an honorable mention for Illustration by the American Institute of Graphic Arts while attending San Diego City College. His work has been featured in international exhibitions alongside some fine and skate art icons that have also inspired him throughout his life. Hueman Hailing from northern California, Hueman is a Los Angeles based graffiti artist whose work can be found on common walls and in galleries worldwide. She works between the delicacy of canvas and massive city walls, playing with ideas of abstraction and figurative art mashed up with grotesque subjects. Playing is part of her creations, just as it is with her name she brings movement portrayed through various two-dimensional, flat surfaces and places them on the domineering walls of cityscapes. She states, “I am constantly seeking balance: between the beautiful and the grotesque, the abstract and the figurative, and that golden moment between being asleep and awake.” This balance can be found in the way Hueman creates, she is known for beginning a piece by energetically throwing paint and then conjuring up the composition through the stream of consciousness that follows. Hueman earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Design and Media Arts from UCLA in 2008. Her work has been featured in the LA Times, Hypebeast, Juxtapoz, and caught the attention of CNN, The History Channel, NPR, and international magazines such as Players Magazine and Grab Magazine. She has had solo exhibitions in multiple L.A. based galleries, and exhibited in shows across the United States as well as internationally. Her featured client base includes Disney, Nike, Converse and American Express. She lives and works in Los Angeles. HCA Presents: Munny on My Mind Munny on my Mind is a unique, inter-disciplinary art class that blends design, sculpture, painting and conceptual art into one project. Youth from Arbor at Palmdale and Village Pointe in Lancaster were tasked with creating an art piece of their choosing by carefully establishing a theme and applying their concept to a Munny. Students used templates provided by Kid Robot to design their creations before moving on to customizing their Munny by using a wide range of materials including clay, markers, paint and yarn. Previous Next

< Back January 23 – May 9, 2021 Eileen Cowin uses video, photography and multimedia installations to explore the blurred lines between narrative, storytelling, memory, the unconscious, fiction and truth. Her carefully fabricated compositions combine objects with intimate human gestures in a way that heightens the emotional experience and yet is open for interpretation, allowing the viewer to complete the artwork. Cowin's early work is often associated with the Los Angeles experimental photography scene of the 1970s and the East Coast Pictures Generation. During the 80s and 90s Cowin's work evolved to include the fully-constructed cinematic installations and videos that she is known for today. In her series What it takes to survive a crisis or the imaginary Richter scale of rage, Cowin expands on her themes of anxiety and rage through her various images and video installations. In the age of unprecedented mass upheaval due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cowin explores the constant state of crisis America has dealt with, starting with the 2016 presidential election to the present time. Her visual narratives are symbolic in nature, perfectly encapsulating the constant fear, turmoil and global uncertainty the pandemic has released. Eileen Cowin is a Los Angeles based artist known for work in photography, video and mixed-media installations. Her work has been featured in over 30 solo exhibitions and in more than 180 group exhibitions. Cowin’s works have also been featured in private and public collections including: the Brooklyn Museum, NY; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Los Angeles, CA; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; the National Museum of American Art; and MOCA, Los Angeles. She has received numerous recognitions and awards including three individual fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a commission from the Public Art Fund in New York, a City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A.) Individual Artist Fellowship in New Genres from the California Arts Council, California Community Foundation’s Fellowship for Visual Artists, City of Santa Monica Artist’s Fellowship, Best Experimental Film USA Film Festival, and three commissions from Los Angeles World Airports. Cowin is currently working on a commission for the Martin Luther King Jr. Metro Station in Los Angeles. Previous Next

< Back May 9 - June 28, 2015 Nancy Macko: The Fragile Bee Main Gallery Terry Arena: Simbiotic Crisis: Northeast Rooftop Terrace & Entry Atrium Gary Brewer: Secrets and Emanations Wells Fargo Gallery Debi Cable: Glow South Gallery Candice Gawne: Lumen Essence South Gallery Lisa Schulte: Essence of Time South Gallery, Top of Stairs & Jewel Box Mud Baron: #flowersonyourhead Vault Gallery Jamie Sweetman: Affinities Education Gallery 8,000 Years of Antelope Valley History Curated by Anthropoligist Dr. Bruce Love East Gallery Nancy Macko: The Fragile Bee Since the early nineties, Nancy Macko has drawn upon images of nature—in particular the honeybee society—to explore the relationships between art, science, technology and ancient matriarchal cultures. Until recently, she combined elements of painting, printmaking, digital media, photography, video and installation to create a unique visual language. This combination of media allowed her to examine and respond to issues related to eco-feminism, nature and the importance of ancient matriarchal cultures, as well as to explore her interest in mathematics and prime numbers in particular, in which she endeavored to make explicit, the implicit connections between nature and technology. Since 2005, she has been developing a body of purely photographic work that takes the viewer into a space of light, air and unfamiliar textures. Using a macro lens to shoot nature subjects from her garden at close range, the images are then realized as large scale photographic works. As a social practice, Macko’s work addresses life’s fundamental questions. She photographs the process of the life and death of plants that are a metaphor of our brief existence. Increasingly threatened by encroaching development, plants remind us how fragile the whole ecosystem is; for example, there is still a very serious concern over the longevity of honeybees. For two decades, Macko has worked with honeybee imagery and media to imagine a utopia where the power and strength of women would be recognized and celebrated. The bees became the metaphor because of their cooperative and unified nature in literally creating the hive, protecting the queen and foraging for food to feed all. In 2009, her focus shifted to examining the flora they draw nourishment from and so carefully attend through the process of pollination. In essence, the bees experience memory loss when they “disappear.” Global research has determined that pesticides and fungicides containing neonicotinoids enter the bees’ nervous systems when they pollinate causing them to experience a form of dementia, which then prevents them from finding their way back to the hive. Grassroots groups like SumOfUs have organized protests and gatherings to raise their voices against bee-killing pesticides and the corporations that manufacture them. We are reaching the point where our global ecosystem is straining, and the threat to the bees is becoming a threat to all of us. As bees die off, up to a third of the food we consume is threatened and food prices are already being affected around the world. Friends of the Earth and the Pesticide Research Institute released a report in August 2013 detailing how some “bee friendly” home garden plants, such as sunflowers, sold at Home Depot, Lowe’s and other garden centers have been pre-treated with the very neonic pesticides shown to harm and kill bees. “The Save America’s Pollinators Act” is included in the next Farm Bill in Congress and the EPA has released rules and new labels for pesticides containing neonicotinoids (imidacloprid, dinotefuran, clothianidin and thiamethoxam). These labels feature a special warning and prohibit use of these products where bees are present. While this is a good sign, it is not enough. We know that bees need more protection and we need more research so that we can better understand the impacts of these and other pesticides on pollinator habitat. As our farms become monocultures of commodity crops like wheat and corn—plants that provide little pollen for foraging bees—honeybees are literally starving to death. If we do not do something, there may not be enough honeybees to meet the pollination demands for valuable crops. As the disappearance of the bees grows more and more dire, Macko’s sense of responsibility to saving them and all of us has also grown. As an artist one way Macko approaches this issue is to study and photograph the plants that attract the bees in Southern California and in different regions of the country. Working with native plants from the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont, CA, she is completing a series of photographic “portraits.” As an avid gardener, Macko has also created a drought tolerant space in her garden for these plants to attract the bees. In the future, she wants to continue to document and understand the disappearance of the bees in terms of comparative visual documentation by visiting botanical gardens throughout the United States talking to curators, botanists and horticulturists about it. Originally from New York, Macko received her graduate degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. A practicing artist since the early 1980s, she has produced more than 20 solo exhibitions and participated in over 150 exhibitions, both nationally and abroad. She has received more than 30 research and achievement awards for her art. She has traveled extensively and has had highly productive artist residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada and the Musee d’Pont Aven in Brittany, France. Macko’s work is in numerous public collections including: Denison Library and the Samella Lewis Collection of Contemporary Art at Scripps College; the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Art, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Bell Gallery at Brown University; the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, UCLA Hammer Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Mount Holyoke College Museum of Art; the New York Public Library; the North Dakota Museum of Art; Pomona College Museum of Art; Gilkey Center for Graphic Art, Portland Art Museum and the RISD Museum of Art. Macko is Professor of Art at Scripps College in Claremont, CA. Terry Arena: Symbiotic Crisis: Northeast Terry Arena explores the vulnerability of the honeybee and, in turn, our food sources through highly technical, rendered drawings. The growth of one-third of the crops we eat are supported by pollination from honeybees. This is to include direct consumables such as fruits, vegetables and nuts and indirectly in the crops that are grown to facilitate the production of meat and dairy products. The role of the honeybee is so integral to crop propagation that bees are transported by trucks to farmlands in need of pollination. Recently, the mysterious vanishing of the bees has been covered in public media. Though studies have been conducted, causes of the decline in the bee population are not yet definitive. Considering the ideas of our relationship with the environment and impact bees have on our food sources, Arena’s detailed renderings are drawn on food tins and repurposed materials. The reductive, yet analytical nature of the graphite drawings is reminiscent of nature studies and botanical drawings of old masters. Though the appearance and quantity of drawings is somewhat mechanized, each one is unique and handmade from collected source materials. Terry Arena received her Master of Arts degree in Painting at California State University, Northridge in 2009. Recently, Arena’s work was part of a two-person show at the Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard, California and she completed a series of mobile installations housed in a box truck last fall. In addition, she has had three solo shows of her graphite still life renderings at Sinclair College in Ohio and the Ventura and Moorpark Colleges in California. Her work has been included in various group exhibits such as Sweet Subversives: Contemporary California Drawings at the Long Beach Museum of Art in Long Beach, City and Self at Red Pipe Gallery in Chinatown, Chain Letter at Shoshana Wayne Gallery in Santa Monica and Revisiting Beauty at Orange County Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Ana. Arena currently lives and works in Ventura. Gary Brewer: Secrets and Emanations For many years, Gary Brewer has been developing a vocabulary to articulate through images and metaphors, the mystery and history of life. His vivid oil paintings present subjects such as: orchids, lichens, corals, pollen and seeds—biological life forms suspended in space. Brewer uses their complex design and compelling architecture as metaphors for the history of life on earth and of human consciousness. In his newest works Brewer has included the mapping of “Dark Matter”, a gravitational structure that is web-like: ordering and organizing galaxies into clusters—an invisible lattice structuring the known universe. For Brewer, our lives are lattice-like in the hidden web of connections that link us to our past and send tendrils into a future resonant with meaning. Brewer states: “I was raised in Lancaster. My father was a test pilot and later became an engineer in the aerospace industry, working to land a man on the moon. As a young child we would walk to the end of our street, which dead-ended at the edge of the desert to watch the X-15 coming in for a landing after skirting the edge of the atmosphere. It was here that the first philosophical musings arose in my young mind. When I stood on the pavement of our street I was in ‘civilization’, but by simply stepping over the edge onto the desert sand I was back in ‘nature’ among the road runners, jack rabbits, horny toads and kangaroo rats that were my companions on my excursions into the wilds. There is something strangely poetic about my return to Lancaster where I spent my youth, to exhibit art works that still vibrate with those philosophical musings of a young boy standing on the edge of the desert, gazing up to the stars and exploring the universe at his feet.” Brewer is a self-taught artist raised in the Mojave Desert. He has curated two major exhibitions, Them; Artists, Scientists and Designers Concerned with the Entomological World SOMARTS, San Francisco, CA in 1999 and The Age of Wonder; Artist’s Engaged with the Natural World Turtle Bay Museum, Redding, CA in 2011. His work has been exhibited in galleries located in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco and are in private, corporate and museum collections throughout the United States. He lives and works in Los Angeles. Debi Cable: Glow Debi Cable creates colorful immersive art experiences through her fluorescent hand-painted murals. Subjects often incorporated include flowers, butterflies, geisha’s and dragons. She also creates full environments such as underwater visions, voyages through space and Alice’s Wonderland. Furthermore, her hand painted murals leap off the canvas through her signature accessory, 3D ChromaDepth® glasses. Debi Cable's artistry was recognized early in her career, when the California native was invited to show at the prestigious “Festival of Arts,” in Laguna Beach, California. Then, after honing her talents for several seasons at the Laguna Beach Sawdust Festival, Debi's faux finishing skills became renowned and she was invited to Las Vegas to paint some of the most amazing hotels, casinos and private residences in the world. Cable's return to Los Angeles has led to the detailed restoration of many landmark venues including the Los Angeles and Palace Theater on Broadway. Her latest personal project, a dazzling 120 foot long blacklight koi fish mural, is located in the heart of downtown Los Angeles on 4th and Main Street. Debi Cable presently lives at the world renowned Brewery Artist Colony and is one of the most prominent up and coming blacklight artists in the country. Debi also supports the growth of her fellow artists by sitting on several committees that promote and market the vibrant arts scene of downtown LA. Formerly the co/founder/art curator for Pershing Square, she is now the Burning Man Regional arts director for Los Angeles allowing her to bring vast, public attention to some of today's hottest artists. Candice Gawne: Lumen Essence Candice Gawne is a Los Angeles artist living and working in San Pedro, California. Since 1975, her oil paintings, neon sculptures and art furniture have been exhibited in galleries and museums in Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C., Berlin, Tokyo and Taiwan. Her neon sculptures are inspired by the fluid grace and endless variation of form found in the inhabitants of the seas and botanical realms. Through electricity, the noble gasses krypton, neon, xenon and argon are transformed to illuminate glass sculptures that show the color and energy of life. Glass, at once translucent and reflective, contains the light as form and energy are revealed. Thus, Gawne states “my invisible feelings of love for the natural world appear as ‘jewels of light’ in glass." For Gawne, light also creates a special kind of abstract energy within the space it describes. She uses light coming into the darkness to symbolize a point of transformation. Candice Gawne studied art at El Camino College and UCLA and has served as an art educator at MOCA, LACMA, OTIS College of Art and Design, ISOMATA, Los Angeles Union School District, the Cultural Affairs Department for the City of Los Angeles and many other public and private schools and institutions. She is currently a resident teaching artist for the Arts Council of Long Beach. She has original work in many corporate, public and private collections including those of Frederick R. Weisman, The Corning Museum of Glass, Charles and Lydia Levy, Doug Simay, Janine Smith, Dr. Cassie Jones, the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium at the Port of Los Angeles, late actor Robin Williams, dancer Paula Abdul, director Penny Marshall, Stephen Reip and artists Eric Johnson, Lili Lakich and D. J. Hall. Lisa Schulte: Essence of Time Essence of Time (Hidden Beauty) is a body of neon work that began as a form of catharsis for self-taught neon artist Lisa Schulte. During a reflective time in her life, she reflected on what was important to her and what was not. She questioned what things, energies and people needed to be placed in the past to allow her to move forward into the future. Pondering these questions during a walk on the beach, Schulte was captivated by the ever changing beauty of pieces of wood that had drifted onto shore. The changes were infinite; influenced by water, sand, clouds, and, of course, light. With these images in mind, she set out to create a body of work that would transcend that same sense of change and contrast in the human experience. Schulte states: “From beginning to end, life is an extraordinary, beautiful journey full of contrast and contradictions. As humans we are much the same on an anatomical level but uniquely different based on our experiences and influences. Essence of Time is a look at this journey.” The neon artworks were created with different size neon glass tubes that show the strength and gentleness of each piece of dried wood. For Schulte, the “dead” roots, branches, and various other materials used, represent the passage of time and our basic sameness. It also reflects that there is a beauty in all things, regardless of age. The noble gas, argon, reflects how life affects each of us differently; while each piece of glass is pumped with argon, with a small drop of mercury added, the colors of white, which range from the warmer whites to the cooler whites, show that by simply changing color and temperature, a different personality and/or feeling is achieved from each piece. For Schulte, the choice to use only white neon in this body of work is “a symbol of the beginning, the new, a lightness, the good and innocence, just as the wood chosen represents the beauty in aging and strength that lives on.” Born in New York and raised in Southern California, Schulte currently resides in Hollywood and works from her studio in North Hollywood, California. Her work has been exhibited in many galleries across the United States including exhibits at the Museum of Neon Art and commissioned pieces for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Images of her artwork have also been published in many online art magazines, several books, magazines and a science text book for 10th graders. Schulte’s neon sculptures are also featured in many private collections. Mud Baron: #flowersonyourhead Mud Baron is a farmer, teacher, activist, artist and social media whiz. As the executive director of John Muir High School’s urban community farm, Muir Ranch, he runs the only hands-on teaching farm of its kind in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The farm makes fresh, organic goods and gorgeous flowers accessible to underserved communities and introduces the love of farming into the public education system. Baron and his students sell at farmers markets, host farm to table dinners and provide original floral designs of increasing popularity. As creator of the Plug Mob, a free seedling program mostly for young students, Baron leverages donations from major gardening companies to help cultivate more school gardens throughout Southern California. It helps in getting the word out that this farmer and dahlia aficionado also has a knack for leveraging social media. He won the Shorty Award (think Oscars of Social Media) in 2012 in the category #Food; and his Twitter and Instagram accounts @cocoxochitl have some 32,000 followers combined. He is a superstar in the “photos of beautiful flowers” internet community; and that is because Mud Baron is also an artist. His interactive performance-based photography project, #flowersonyourhead, developed from the simple realization that all kinds of people love flowers. He carries exotic, fragrant Muir Ranch-grown bouquets to public places, convincing friends and total strangers to be photographed with, as the name suggests, flowers on their heads. Disarming, intimate and art-historically evocative, this ongoing portrait series proves that flowers are food for the soul and the seeds of change can take root anywhere. Baron states: “If you look at the development decisions that are made by business and local politicians, what we get constantly is a stream of strip malls and concrete. You can’t eat that. Other species don’t eat that, either. What might seem like a trivial Martha Stewart-esque effort, isn’t. With #flowersonyourhead, I’m doing [environmental artist] Andy Goldsworthy but including people into my art.” In the future, Baron would like to develop a charter school with a maker curriculum and is currently working to raise funds to install a new aquaponic system at Muir Ranch. Jamie Sweetman: Affinities As an avid gardener and former biomedical illustrator, the natural world serves as a primary influence on Jamie Sweetman’s artwork. Recently, she has focused on drawing, using monotype on mylar with colored pencil, ink and marker. Sweetman looks for form and structure in the complexity of nature through layered drawings that often merge human anatomy with plant life. This process originated with Sweetman’s experience and studies in human dissection. She states, “The structure of the growth pattern of a wisteria or kiwi vine is similar to the veins and arteries of the human circulatory system. Viewing a cross section of the cerebellum of the human brain reveals the shape of a tree. The similarity continues when you look at tree branches, root systems, river beds viewed from the sky and lightning.” Sweetman also draws on fractal geometry as one explanation for these phenomena. According to Benoit Mandelbrot, "Fractal geometry plays two roles. It is the geometry of deterministic chaos and it can also describe the geometry of mountains, clouds and galaxies." Sweetman earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and a Master of Fine Arts degree from California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). She has exhibited across Southern California and is in several private and public collections including Paramount Pictures and Saxum Vineyards. Sweetman teaches Anatomy for Artists at CSULB and the University of Southern California and Printmaking at Azusa Pacific University. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Bruce Love, Ph.D.: 8,000 Years of Antelope Valley History Native peoples are here and were always here, a fact easy to forget if we think of California Indians as living in the past, but it has been only a few generations since California missions moved people from their homelands, and ranchers and farmers took over Native hunting and collecting grounds. Long before the mission period of just 200 years ago, reaching back 8000 years (and possibly 12,000!) the Antelope Valley was home to diverse language groups who practiced long distance trade, social networks, religion, commerce, village life, and all the hallmarks of civilized society including land management and care for natural resources. Evidence from distant millennia is scarce and many times only recognized by trained archaeologists, but traditions and cultures from more recent times are best understood by the Native peoples themselves. This exhibit attempts to bridge that enormous time span and introduce the visitor to the artifacts and the people, the history and the culture, the archaeologist and the Native. The exhibit organizer, Dr. Bruce Love, Antelope Valley resident living in Juniper Hills, has a Ph.D. from UCLA in anthropology and has more than thirty-five years experience in Southern California as well as Mesoamerican archaeology, history, and cultural anthropology. Acknowledgements: Wanda Deal, David Earle, David Em, John Fleeman, Dr. Roger Grace, John Kneifl, Roscoe Loetzerich, Lorence, Stevie Love, Rudy Ortega, Jr., Charlee Reasor, Ray Rivera, Jim Rocchio, Peggy Ronning, Carol Sevilla, Richard Suarez, Del Troy, Charles White, Darcy Wiewall, MOAH Staff, AVC volunteers. Previous Next