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

< Back January 22 - April 16, 2022 Activist Graphics from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Featuring: Emory Douglas • Sheila Levrant de Bretteville • Shepard Fairey & more Since the mid-20th century, California has been a beacon of both inventive design and political activism. Exploring the intersection of these two realms, this exhibition uses case studies from LACMA’s collection to demonstrate how designers and artists championed civil rights, opposed wars and injustice, and pressed for change. Skilled communicators by profession, they distilled complex issues into eye-catching images, often appropriating commercial art techniques—from newspaper broadsheets to screen prints to digital downloads—to distribute powerful imagery despite limited resources. Others led workshops and formed printing collectives, providing movements with new methods for disseminating their messages. Their works express both outrage and optimism, going beyond protest to envision alternative ways of living. Key figures and organizations including Emory Douglas of the Black Panther Party, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville of the Woman’s Building, Self Help Graphics & Art, and street artist Shepard Fairey achieved widespread acclaim and notoriety, galvanizing political movements and empowering marginalized communities. 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; California State University, Northridge, Art Galleries; an Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles Collage. 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 Initiative. Previous Next

< Back May 12 - July 15, 2018 Artists: Sant Khalsa, Constance Mallinson, Greg Rose, Timothy Robert Smith, High & Dry, Robert Dunahay Forest for the Trees is comprised of five exhibitions addressing the complex relationships between people and the living and built environments they inhabit, specifically focusing on humans’ symbiotic connection to trees. Featured in the Main Gallery at MOAH is a survey of work documented over the course of eight years by artist Greg Rose. Featured in the South Gallery is 40 plus years of work by Sant Khalsa. With solo exhibition by Constance Mallinson, site specific installations by artists Timothy R. Smith and High & Dry, a collaboration between Osceola Refetoff and Christopher Langley. Each of the artists explore the environment and the impacts, both positive and negative, that humans have upon it. Greg Rose’s work documents his, nearly decade long, excursions into the San Gabriel Mountains as he catalogs, analyzes, and paints various trees across the forest. Sant Khalsa’s, Prana, brings together work from her more than forty years as an artist, examining humanity’s existence within nature, specifically their connection to trees. Constance Mallinson’s work takes a closer look at the massive amounts of material waste that humans generate, magnifying the remains of landfills and garbage “patches” by painting them on oversized canvases. Timothy R. Smith is constructing a site specific installation regarding the built environment that will span two stories and multiple exhibition spaces. High & Dry’s dispatches takes a look at humans and their impact on the environment, specifically concerning the Mojave Desert region and what we leave behind as a culture. Joining Forest for the Trees at MOAH:CEDAR on Saturday, June 16 from 6 to 8 p.m. is artist Miya Ando. Inspired by her upbringing, Ando’s installation will transport visitors to the redwood forests of northern California. High & Dry LAND ARTIFACTS High & Dry comprises a long-term exploration of the California desert and the people who live there. Balancing images and words with the personal and historical, the cross-platform collaboration between photographer Osceola Refetoff and writer/historian Christopher Langley focuses on the remnants and future of human activity across these vast open spaces, territory that has traditionally been used for resource extraction, toxic dumping and military exercises, and currently faces a future dominated by immense wind and solar arrays. The exhibit Land Artifacts examines the things we leave behind and what they reveal about ourselves, our past and our future. Nowhere are these instructive legacies and endowments more exposed than in the barren California desert. Whether from ruins, artifacts, memorials and/or waste, there is much we can learn about lives, attitudes and the things that we value. It has been said that we borrow our land from our grandchildren. What legacy do you want to leave? Osceola Refetoff’s interest is in documenting humanity’s impact on the world – both the intersection of nature and industry, and the narratives of the people living at those crossroads. The landscape photographs in Land Artifacts are infrared exposures, which accentuate the raw intensity of vast arid spaces and the graphic relationship between land and sky. Though Refetoff does not work exclusively in black and white, what links the diverse forms of his practice is his commitment to render not only what a place looks like, but also how it feels to be there. To that end, his black and white infrared photographs tap into classic historical and visual tropes from the medium’s earliest days, confronting evolving questions of truth, beauty, dispassion, reportage and artistry that have always been a part of how photography functions in our culture. Christopher Langley, a life-long educator, has lived in and studied the Mojave Desert for more than forty-five years. Working as a film historian, founder of the Museum of Western Film History in Lone Pine and Inyo County Film Commissioner, he focuses on the desert’s complex relationship with cinema, and how land plays an essential role in the story of our lives. Co-founder of the Alabama Hills Stewardship Group, Langley’s environmental advocacy has won the National Conservation Cooperation Award. His writing is widely syndicated and includes three books on California’s arid landscape. High & Dry is a regular feature on KCET’s Emmy-winning program Artbound. Greg Rose Tree Fiction Greg Rose has been documenting individual trees and the changes they undergo for the past eight years. It began while taking regular hiking trips through the San Gabriel Mountains. He started noticing the trees of this region were made rugged from enduring extreme weather conditions. Over time, he began regarding the trees by their individual characteristics and started to document them. First he maps, illustrates and photographs the trees, then he paints them. In his series, Tree Fiction , Greg Rose presents detailed gouache renderings of trees which he has isolated in a plane of vibrant gradients. His work takes on the quality of a narrative, mirroring both the tension and sense of connection one may find in their own life such as within families and other relationships. The titles of each painting suggests a variety of complicated exchanges between the trees like characters in a play. Greg Rose is most interested in the concept of change and how much change trees undergo throughout their lifetime, particularly in regard to wildfires. Greg Rose is a Los Angeles based artist with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drawing and painting from California State University, Long Beach, California and a Master of Fine Arts degree in drawing and painting from Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, California. Greg Rose has been exhibited in both group and solo shows in California, New York, Texas, Missouri and Columbia and has been featured in a number of publications including Artillery magazine, The Huffington Post, Artweek, Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle and more. Sant Khalsa Prana: Life with Trees Sant Khalsa is an artist and activist whose projects develop from her impassioned inquiry into the nature of place and complex environmental and societal issues. Her artworks create a contemplative space where one can sense the subtle and profound connections between themselves and the natural world. The subject of trees has been a focus in Sant Khalsa’s creative work for nearly five decades. Prana: Life with Trees is the first in depth survey of Khalsa’s intimate connection with trees – her explorations, observations, perceptions and interpretations. Her unique perspective is expressed through a style that encompasses the documentary, subjective and conceptual. Her work evokes a meditative calm to what we often experience as a chaotic and conflicted world. Khalsa is concerned with both the micro and macro aspects of forests: what is seen and unseen; historical, scientific and spiritual; and personal and universal. She is mindful of our symbiotic relationship with trees and forests, grounded in the life-sustaining connection through the breath (exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen). Her beautiful, distinctive and sometime disquieting works express the cycle of life (birth, life, death and rebirth), the destruction and memory of the forest, as well as the promise of new growth. The exhibition includes her earliest landscapes (self-portraits and photographs of orange groves); images of trees from her three decades photographing in the Santa Ana Watershed and other locations in the American West; and mixed-media sculptures and installation works inspired by her research on air quality and life-changing experience planting more than a thousand trees in 1992 as part of the reforestation of Holcomb Valley in the San Bernardino Mountains. In her recent color photographs, we witness the fruits of her activism, a healthy, thriving and hopeful forest eco-system. Sant Khalsa’s artworks are widely exhibited internationally, collected by prestigious museums including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Nevada Museum of Art and Center for Creative Photography in Tucson and published in numerous art books and periodicals. Khalsa is a recipient of prestigious fellowships, awards and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, California Council for the Humanities and others. She is a Professor of Art, Emerita at California State University, San Bernardino and resides in Joshua Tree. Constance Mallinson ME, ME, ME Constance Mallinson depicts monumental assortments of post-consumer items that are reminiscent of trash dumps, ocean gyres and urban alleyways. Her art unveils the complexities and moral dilemmas of living in a technological, consumerist, disposable world as humans simultaneously contribute to its demise. Evoking the past, present and future, the content of her work examines the complexities and moral dilemmas that come with living in an imprudent consumerist culture. Post-apocalyptic, darkly humorous, critical and celebratory at once, Mallinson’s images of degraded commodities situate the viewer in a provocative endgame. Mallinson’s art features paintings composed from both natural and manufactured waste that the artist has collected from the streets on her daily walks through her neighborhood. The discarded contents found on city streets are not often associated with the sublime, but in Constance Mallinson’s paintings, they are rendered at a disturbing scale. Decaying plant materials and a fantastical assortment of post-consumer items are deftly interwoven. The rich details, dazzling color, variety of objects and interplay of forms nod towards 17th century Dutch still life painting as well as Cubist collage. Mallinson renders kitsch advertising images in an Old Masters technique with an underlying desire to push for a newer paradigm that reflects globalism and awareness to the threatening of the world’s ecosystems by population, industry and pollution. In their scale and execution her art pieces have been appreciated for their ability to simultaneously seduce and deliver a critique and to share a continuing relevance for painting in an era of ubiquitous mass media. Constance Mallinson received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Georgia and has exhibited her work throughout California. In addition to her recent commission for the EXPO Line MTA Bergamot Station permanent artwork installation, she has designed a poster for the MTA Red Line, been a finalist for a mural for the California Supreme Court in San Francisco and numerous libraries in Southern California. Mallinson has taught at many universities and colleges in Southern California including University of California, Los Angeles and Claremont Graduate School. She was the recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship as well as the City of Los Angeles’ Artist Grant. Many of Constance Mallison’s paintings can also be viewed in major private and public art collections including LACMA and the San Jose Museum. Timothy Robert Smith Revised Maps of the Present Timothy Robert Smith is a Los Angeles based oil painter and muralist interested in multi-dimensionalism, which he describes as an attempt to understand how one’s personal experience in the world fits into the greater picture of the universe. Smith’s work does not replicate reality as we perceive it, but rather asks the viewer to consider the realities they do not see, questioning the realness of their perspective both visually and metaphysically. Revised Maps of the Present is a multi-room interactive installation that combines painted walls, sculpted figures, lights, sound and video projections. The installation begins with the scene of a train station in a city. As the observer moves through the installation, layers of reality disconnect and unfold into a labyrinth of warped angles, hidden spatial dimensions and alternative versions of the present. The installation aims to simulate a present moment as if one were to view it from all perspectives at once. The installation as seen here at MOAH is the first incarnation of this exhibit. With each new installment hereafter, Revised Maps of the Present will reconfigure and expand with added rooms and features. Timothy Robert Smith invites the viewer to reexamine the world without their familiar mental filter and to see again as a child sees: enormous, mysterious and full of possibilities. Timothy Robert Smith received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in studio art from California State University Los Angeles and a Masters of Fine Arts degree for studio art from Laguna College of Art and Design. He also teaches at Laguna College of Art and Design, California State University Long Beach, California State University Los Angeles and Saddleback College. Timothy Robert Smith has also been featured in various media outlets including Juxtapoz Magazine and NBC News and his paintings have shown in solo exhibitions at TEDx Conferences and Copro Gallery in Santa Monica, California. Robert Dunahay He Man Distinguished patrons worldwide collect Robert Dunahay’s art including the Royal Family Al Thani of Qatar, Baroness Monica Von Neumann of Switzerland and celebrities Pierce Brosnan, Kelsey Grammer and Linda Hamilton. His work is part of the corporate collections for Pepperdine University, The Financial Times, The Packard Foundation and the W Hotel. Dunahay is most known for his Palm Series of paintings depicting grand-scale palm trees in vibrant colors. By depicting his subject in face-to-face portraiture style on a solid background, he replaces traditional references to landscape with the transcendentalism of iconography. American artist Robert Charles Dunahay currently lives and works in Palm Springs, California. Previous Next

< Back May 11 - July 21, 2019 Featured Solo Exhibitions Ray Beldner, Elisabeth Higgins O’Connor, Victoria Potrovitza, Katherine Stocking-Lopez, Nicola Vruwink Installations Rebecca Campbell, Peter Hiers, R.Rex Parris High School, Meriel Stern, Victor Wilde Group Fiber Exhibition Orly Cogan, Mike Collins, Valerie Daval, Terri Friedman, Gina Herrera, Anne Hieronymus, Uma Rani Iyli, Sandra Lauterbach, Karen Lofgren, Suchitra Mattai, Art Moura, Maria E. Piñeres, Vojislav Radovanovic, Joy Ray, Leisa Rich, Samuelle Richardson, Cindy Rinne, Nike Schroeder, Annie Seaton Lisa Solomon, Sandra Vista, Dana Weiser, Diane Williams Ray Beldner Ray Beldner uses found imagery from magazines, books, posters, and catalogs to create his dense, textural collages. He then mounts the collages to museum board and cuts eat piece into a unique shape. Like many of Beldner’s past projects, these Untitled Shaped Collages explore the idea of value: each small clipping is stripped of its historical significance and is appreciated for its more formal qualities such as texture, color, pattern, and shape. The works are “woven” together to create a new, visually active image. Ray Beldner is an interdisciplinary artist whose work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and can be found in many public and private collections. Born in San Francisco, Beldner received a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from Mills College. He has received numerous awards and fellowships, and has taught sculpture, interdisciplinary studies, and professional practices at the San Francisco Art Institute, California College of the Arts, San Francisco State University, and the University of California in Santa Cruz. Elisabeth Higgins O'Connor In Blamethirst and Hate Stayed the Ending , Elisabeth Higgins O’Connor uses familiar animal-like forms to call attention to the struggles of the human experience, and the intersection between nature and culture. These creatures reach their physical and mental limits as they struggle to stand upright – bits of their armor-like coverings begin to unravel, their bodies distort, and their apparent fatigue lends an all-too-familiar sense of vulnerability. O’Connor gathered her materials for these sculptures from second-hand shops and thrift stores, reworking each element through cutting, sewing, ripping, wrapping, roping, tying, and stiffening, to create a surface that feels simultaneously distressed and beautiful. The salvaged materials (boxes, couches, bedding, blankets, pillows, Afghans) used by O’Connor rest on a skeleton of broken down furniture. The weight of these materials are quite heavy, and require “crutches” for support. Elisabeth Higgins O’Connor received her BFA from California State University, Long Beach, and her MFA from the University of California, Davis. She has shown extensively in group and solo exhibitions in California, as well as throughout the US and Canada. Her work has been featured in several publications including Juxtapoz Magazine, ArtForum, Artillery Magazine, and more. Elisabeth has taught studio art classes at the University of Washington, Seattle, Cal State University, Long Beach, and currently teaches as UC Davis. Victoria Potrovitza No Exit and Landscape by Dusk by Victoria Potrovitza were created by embroidering vibrant-colored thread into canvas and applying gouache or acrylic paint. Her background in architecture influences her abstract compositions, and she often references universal tribal symbols, drawing upon personal and shared history. Potrovitza is a contemporary abstract fiber artist with her MS degree in Architecture from UAUIM, Romania. A significant part of her career was dedicated to creating wearable art with a focus on hand-painted silk, and her collections have been featured at New York Fashion Week. During the last decade, Potrovitza shifted her focus from fashion to embroidery. Her artwork is featured online at Saatchi Art, and has been exhibited in the United States, Israel, and Romania. She lives and works in Lancaster, California. Katherine Stocking-Lopez Using natural forms, Katherine Stocking-Lopez investigates her personal experience of womanhood and motherhood, as well as the limits of gender and the human body. Inspired by the inevitability of change, Katherine stitches soft fibers, beads, and found objects together reflect on her struggles with anxiety, infertility, pregnancy loss, postpartum depression, and the imperfections of life. “Growth is inherently beautiful; seeds sprout, flowers bloom, love grows. But when things keep growing, or grow where they shouldn’t, growth can constrict and choke. Depression grows in the dark. Anxieties sprout from deep in the mind. Sickness clusters and bursts like spores. A garden can have both a tangle of thorns and a bloom of flowers. The duality of nature as creator and destroyer is present in my work.” Katherine Stocking-Lopez is a mixed media artist with a specialty in combining traditional drawing and sculpture work. She combines the family tradition of needlework with the complexity of emotions that family itself inspires. Katherine won Best of Exhibition at MOAH’s CEDARFEST juried art show in 2017, and first place in the 3-D/Mixed Media category at CEDARFEST 2016. Nicola Vruwink In Please and Your Everything, Nicola Vruwink crochets magnetically coated plastic film from cassette tapes, rather than the usual yarn. Employing obsolete materials such as cassette tapes is just one way that Vruwink draws attention to the loneliness of modern urban life, the fast pace of technological advancements, and the detritus that humans leave behind. The act of crocheting these typographical works provides the artist with a sense of symmetry and meditative order in the midst of our chaotic world. Originally from Iowa, Vruwink has lived and worked in Los Angeles for the past fifteen years. She received her MFA from the University of Washington, Seattle. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions across the West Coast. She has also been featured in several publications such as the Los Angeles Times, ArtForum, and the Huffington Post. Vruwink is currently an assistant professor at ArtCenter College of Design, and is adjunct faculty at Santa Monica College and El Camino College. Previous Next

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

< Back November 9, 2019 - January 12, 2020 Solo exhibitions: Matthew Finley Rob Grad John Peralta Melanie Pullen Christopher Russell Joni Sternbach Rodrigo Valenzuela Site specific installation: Kira Vollman Selections from the Permanent Collection The Lancaster Museum of Art & History (MOAH) and the Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation (LMPAF) invite Antelope Valley residents and visitors to its newest exhibition Beyond the Surface , a survey of contemporary photography. The exhibit will be on display November 9 through January 12, and the opening reception will be November 9 from 4-6 p.m. Beyond the Surface features the work of eight photographers, including a survey of Melanie Pullen’s work in the Main Gallery, Joni Sternbach’s Surfland series in the East Gallery, This Too Shall Pass by Matthew Finley in the North Gallery, Rob Grad’s Finding Foreverland series in the Wells Fargo Gallery, work from Christopher Russel in the Moore Family Trust Gallery, photographic installation by Rodrigo Valenzuela in the South Gallery, along with sculpture by John Peralta, and 16mm , a site-specific installation, by Kira Vollman. Photography has long been associated with its ability to document reality. As a medium, photography has neatly satisfied the human need to search for objective truth. But truth is not objective. Like photography, the truth is crafted, manipulated, and enhanced. In the digital age, with the advent of augmented and virtual reality, the blurring of the line that separates real from unreal has reached an unprecedented level. Beyond the Surface examines these permeable boundaries. Its artists, who each utilize traditional photographic processes, challenge the viewer to look deeper and find a greater sense of truth that lies just beyond the images’ surface. MATTHEW FINLEY: THIS TOO SHALL PASS Matthew Finley creates conceptual portraits that connect with the viewer on an intimate and emotional level. By using the handcrafted photographic processes of tintype and ambrotype, Finley harkens back to the fixedness and inerasable quality of his own personal history. He explores instant film as a way to create portraits as original and authentic works of self-examination, capturing elusive, often fleeting moments of self-realization. In the series, This Too Shall Pass , Finley reflects on his personal journey of coming out as a gay man after being raised in a religious household where being gay was not accepted. Each Polaroid acts as a looking glass, through which the viewer experiences Finely’s “past selves.” His memories, though fuzzy and impressionistic, are a vulnerable look into his youth, realization of his sexuality, and the persistence of time. Shame, fear, and rejection slowly transform into love, desire, and belonging as Finley takes the viewer through his journey to self-acceptance. His goal is to share these memories, set free the ghosts that have haunted his past and connect with andencourage others who are going through similar experiences. Based in Los Angeles, Matthew Finley has been a photographer for ten years and is a core member of the Advanced Photography Critique Group at the Center for Photography at Woodstock. His work has shown in galleries on the West Coast, New Orleans, and Cincinnati. His images have also appeared in publications including Fraction Magazine, Shots Magazine, and Plates to Pixels where he won the Juror Award in The Visual Armistice 10th Annual Juried Showcase. ROB GRAD: FINDING FOREVERLAND Rob Grad’s sculptures are photo-based mixed media. Each piece consists of layered plexiglass parts that combine painting, drawing, and photography in a variety of ways that highlight or conceal various elements. Grad uses his work to address existential issues, using the physical layers of his sculptures to tackle the multiple layers of each issue. These meditations give the viewer license to consider their personal histories and discover their own truth. Finding Foreverland reflects on his interest in nature and the evolution of humankind’s relationship with it. Grad says, “from as far back as I can remember, I’ve always felt at home surrounded by nature. It’s wise. And patient. It was here before us, and will probably be here long after we’re gone.” The artist’s inspiration comes from a poem he wrote while reflecting on the wisdom and authenticity of a flower’s life. He saw the flower as delicate, but also unreservedly tough and unapologetic. Each sculpture in the series is a metaphorical character that struggles to grasp the wisdom that the flower embodies so effortlessly. The complementary environments cropped into hand painted gestural shapes, fused together with colors and text and assembled into a three-dimensional wall hanging brings each character to life. Grad is a current resident of southern California. He won First Place in the “New Media” Category of the Beverly Hills Art Show in 2015. He has shown his work in solo exhibitions at Fabrik Projects in Culver City, California, Gallery 825 in Los Angeles, California, and the Frame Gallery in Agoura, California, as well as in group exhibitions throughout southern California and Florida. Grad’s work was included in Art Basel, Switzerland, and at SCOPE Miami in 2017. JOHN PERALTA John Peralta is a self-taught artist whose unconventional style of sculpture incorporates iconic mechanical objects and high-tech materials to produce beautiful and complex representations. His interpretation of what is known in engineering terms as the exploded diagram, is original and demonstrates his imagination, technical expertise, and inventiveness. Peralta’s The Mechanitions Series reverses the fabrication process by taking utilitarian objects from the past and turning them into sculpture. Each three-dimensional exploded diagram makes each object feel vulnerable and approachable, while also creating a sense of reverence as the viewer takes in the intricate workings of the device. It allows the viewer to connect their own intimate experiences with the object, “like the typewriter your grandfather used in the war, your grandmother’s sewing machine, your father’s pocket watch, an iconic electric guitar,” as Peralta explains. These memories evoke a strong emotional connection to these objects and invite the viewer to imagine the vast memories each object holds. Peralta is a native of New Mexico and, although he now lives in Austin, Texas, his New Mexico family and heritage remain major influences on his life and work. Some of his earliest memories are of him and his brother pulling their red wagon around the neighborhood, knocking on doors, collecting broken radios, televisions, tape players – anything they could get their hands on – opening them up to see what made them work. He received no formal training in the arts, and it wasn’t until his thirties that he found his creative voice. Peralta is currently represented by the George Billis Galleries in New York and Los Angeles, Galerie Goutal in Aix-en-Provance France, Wally Workman Gallery in Austin, Gerald Peters Projects in Santa Fe, and Cinq Gallery in Dallas. He has had major exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Austin, and Santa Fe. SCENE OF THE CRIME AND THE FASHION OF VIOLENCE : A SURVEY OF PHOTOGRAPHER MELANIE PULLEN Melanie Pullen’s photography tells a story in a single frame. Her work is cinematic and theatrical, often taking inspiration from film, photojournalism, forensic photography, and war journalism. This retrospective features work produced over the course of the last 14 years, including images from her High Fashion Crime Scenes, Violent Times, and Soda POP! series . Widely known for her work in the fashion industry, Pullen often uses fashion and media consumption as themes in her work to express the subtleties of her ideas. In her most extensive series, High Fashion Crime Scenes (2013-2017), Pullen outfits her models in haute-couture while staging them in re-enacted vintage crime scenes. The outfits distract and draw the viewer’s attention away from the gruesome scene of the crime. In Violent Times (2005-2009), Pullen focuses on the history of violence and its glamourization from early documentation in historical painting to the contrasting reality of modern photojournalism. Her series Soda POP! (2015) takes the idea of iconic soda ads and flips it on its head, making the viewer feel uneasy by placing the models in questionable nighttime settings. Melanie Pullen was born in New York City in 1975. She is self-taught and was raised in a family of photojournalists, publishers, and artists. Currently she lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Pullen has both exhibited and her work is in the permanent holdings of The Getty Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Art, The Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, California and Museo Jumex in Mexico City. Pullen has been recognized in numerous publications including Art Forum, Art Review, CBS News, CBS Radio, Elle, Fortune, GQ, Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, New York Times Magazine, Nylon, Photo, Rolling Stone, San Francisco Chronicle, Vogue, and W. CHRISTOPHER RUSSELL: FALLS Christopher Russell analyzes the use of photography as technology has advanced over time. Originally, chemical photography was used to faithfully record people and places around the world, often feeling as if the viewer saw or experienced the actual place or thing firsthand. With the progression to digital photography, that sense of truth and reality is lost due to the complete malleability of images. Russell takes these digital images and emphasizes their changing position in the world from objective truth to subjective realities by scratching, cutting, folding and painting on the print, often creating his own narrative. In this series Falls , Russell fictionalizes a travelogue of a highly acclaimed Western photographer from the 1860s, Carleton Watkins. Russell travels to locations that Watkins previously photographed and photographs them himself, looking at them from the opposite end of a historical continuum. As he photographs each location, he manipulates the light that enters the lens to ensure they are fuzzy and hard to follow. As Russell scratches into the emulsion of the print, ghost-like patterns and fictional narratives begin to appear, warping Watkin’s original travelogue. Each of the images in this exhibition is “waterfalls.” This connecting theme is portrayed in a variety of ways throughout the work. It can take form in a sudden change in the flow of a pattern, an interpretation of a historical photograph of Willamette falls, or a muddle of ships approaching a watery precipice. Born in 1974, Russell received his Master of Fine Arts degree from the Art Center College of Design in California. In 2009, he produced a solo exhibition at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, California. He has also been featured in group exhibitions at the Tokyo Institute of Photography in Japan, The Norton Museum in West Palm Beach, Florida, Armory Center for the Arts in Los Angeles, California, White Columns in New York, New York, De Appel Arts Center in the Netherlands, Oakland Museum of California in Oakland, California, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, California among others. He has published numerous critical articles in addition to being a featured subject of positive review by the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Huffington Post, Artillery, Frieze, and ArtForum. JONI STERNBACH: SURFLAND This exhibition of tintype portraits was made during Sternbach’s visit to Oahu in December 2017 and 2018. It is part of a larger body of work, entitled Surfland, depicting various sized large format portraits of surfers, made on location around the globe. Surfland explores the real and conceptualized state of the surfer in the American imaginary. This project is a latter-day ethnographic document that unites different ages, genders, cultures and geographies through sport. The artist’s project places the everyday “soul surfer” (those who surf for the sheer pleasure of surfing) next to the elite, pro-surfing competitor just as they might exist in the water, waiting for the next wave. Sternbach’s work examines the ever-changing juncture between land and sea. This series was born out of her life-long desire to clarify the connection between humans and nature and her enduring love of the ocean. Surfland is an in-depth body of work that delves into the nature of identity and the character of portraiture. It’s an endeavor that can engage an entire community at any given time. What started as a local project on Long Island developed into a broader global study of people and place, sport and culture. Each tintype uses a liquid emulsion (collodion) that is poured onto the plate just minutes before it’s exposed and developed. All of Sternbach’s photographs are processed on site using a portable darkroom. The plates are fixed in daylight, allowing the image to be shared immediately with her sitters, which is crucial to her interaction and relationship with her subject. The attention to time spent making and evaluating each detailed collodion plate transforms the standard photographer/subject connection to a shared experience. Joni Sternbach is an artist and educator based in New York. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Photography from the School of Visual Arts and a Master of Arts degree from New York University and the International Center of Photography in 1987. She is an advisory board member and founding faculty at Penumbra Foundation in New York City, where she teaches wet plate collodion. Sternbach’s work is part of many international and public collections including the National Portrait Gallery in London, Joslyn Museum, MOCA Jacksonville, Nelson Atkins Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. She is the recipient of several grants including New York Foundation for the Arts and Creative Artists Public Service and Santo Foundation. Her monograph Surf Site Tin Type was published in the Spring 2015 by Damiani and is now sold out of the second edition. She is represented in Los Angeles by Von Lintel Gallery and in Paris, France by Galerie Hug. RODRIGO VALENZUELA: STATURE Rodrigo Valenzuela’s work in photography, video, and installation is rooted in contradictory traditions of documentary and fiction, often involving narratives around immigration and the working class. The artist often expands upon his own personal experiences, such as feelings of alienation and displacement, to inform universal concepts throughout his work. Valenzuela’s photographic technique involves orchestrating “performances for the camera,” which entails creating complex spaces by using his own photographic work as a backdrop against which additional installations are seamlessly built and rephotographed. The illusionistic quality of these spaces engage the viewer in questioning the way their own experiences influence their view on truth and reality. Valenzuela’s new series, Stature , is a progression of his previous studio constructions. In this series, the artist casts discarded electronics packaging in clay and concrete. These abstract constructions appear sterile, harsh, and sometimes even monsterlike, reminiscent of Brutalist architecture that was popular in the 1950s. None of these forms are glued or connected in any way. Instead, each object is precariously balanced in each arrangement. By taking these cast off items and making them permanent, structural and valuable, Valenzuela indirectly examines capitalist endeavors. Rodrigo Valenzuela was born in Santiago, Chile in 1982. He completed an art history degree at the University of Chile in 2004, then worked in construction while making art over his first decade in the United States. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from Evergreen State College and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Washington. His work has been exhibited in a variety of museums and galleries including the Upfor Gallery in Portland, Oregon, New Museum in New York, New York, Laurence Miller Gallery in New York, New York, Arróniz Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City, Mexico, USF Contemporary Art Museum in Tampa, Florida, Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery, Light Work in Syracuse, New York and the Galerie Lisa Kandlhofer in Vienna, Austria. He is a professor of art at the University of California, Los Angeles and represented by Klowden Mann Gallery in Los Angeles. KIRA VOLLMAN: 16MM Kira Vollman’s installation, 16mm , combines photography, painting, sculpture, and sound into an interactive experience. Vollman collects refuse from scrap yards, thrift and surplus stores, combining these disparate objects and synthesizing new meanings in this next phase of their life. As a visual and sound artist, Vollman sees each medium in constant interaction with one another, as “parts of a whole” rather than separate entities. Byincorporating music into her work, she curates a connection between the artwork, the viewer, and herself,orchestrating a moment of unity via interaction. 16mm is an abstract, static film clip which takes the viewer on a narrative of their own choosing. As the viewer travels down the 16 foot piece, the provided score, along with the photography, collage, and painting invites the audience to imagine themselves on an adventure, drama, or even a romance. Vollman muses, “Danger might be lurking around the next corner. There are escape routes. There is a serious pitfall at the center of your journey. Can you avoid it? The red threads are your lifelines.” The undulating frames draw viewers deeper as the plot thickens. The score for the piece is incorporated via steel frames that have been woven onto diffusion frames used in lighting for film. Kira Vollman is a Los Angeles based artist, curator, and vocalist. She is currently the owner, director, and curator of ARK Gallery Studios in Altadena, California. She is also a composer and vocalist for the group, Non Credo. Her artwork has been shown in galleries such as The Neutra Institute Museum & Gallery, Sylvia White Gallery, SOPA Studios Gallery, and MOAH:CEDAR. In 2017, she won first place in the All Media Exhibition at the Irvine Fine Arts Center in Irvine, California. Previous Next

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

< Back July 6 - December 8, 2024 Artist and printmaker Chloe Allred’s art residency at the Prime Desert Woodlands started in January 2024 focusing on the contemplation of preserving natural spaces and access to nature. Through her plein-air and studio works, Allred creates oil paintings, linoleum blocks, and intaglio prints inspired by the flora and fauna, animal bones, and taxidermy found the Elyze Clifford Interpretive Center. For Allred, preservation is not only important for maintaining the health of the environment, but also fundamental to our physical and mental well-being. In her walks and painting trips to the preserve, Allred’s work represents a whimsical and gestural amalgamation of quiet contemplation and introspection. Chloe Allred is a painter, writer, and educator based in Yucca Valley. She is a contributing artist and writer for the book, "We Believe You" (published by Henry Holt in 2016) and the cover artist for the poetry collection “Preposition” (published by Undercurrent in 2021.) Her paintings and writing have been featured in Orange Coast Magazine, Huffington Post, USA Today, and the BBC. She is a tenure-track art professor at Copper Mountain College in Joshua Tree. Allred’s subjects range from surreal portraits to whimsical landscapes that celebrate the Mojave; empathy is at the core of both her artmaking and teaching practice. Previous Next

< Back May 13 - August 20 Alexander-Clarke enjoys silence and solitude. She is a private person, never feeling like she fit into a culture. When she came to the United States at the end of her childhood, she began to see the world differently. She soon realized that everyone has perceptual limits, and that her own view seemed small, and somewhat limited. Alexander-Clarke's video work incorporates this perspective, presenting small fragments of nature and our surroundings. They are, however, just marks on a greater canvas, signifying the vastness of space as a metaphor for the unknowable and incomprehensible. Alexander-Clarke orders these marks and fragments into sequences that play with the viewer’s expectation and perception of time. She provides slivers of recognizable imagery that multiply and repeat, transforming what originated as a brief and fragmentary moment into a tour of introspective sensations. After images remain long after the light from a color block fades,mixing in memory with the next mark to deepen the dialogue between what is seen and unseen. Through pulse and rhythm, Alexander-Clarke expands one's view of the material world, transforming it into a greater sense of being. Previous Next

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

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

< Back January 26 - April 21, 2019 EXHIBITING ARTISTS: David Adey Tami Bahat Clayton Campbell Catherine Coan Emily Ding Nancy Evans Jane Fisher Matthew Floriani Simone Gad James Griffith Laurie Hassold Chie Hitotsuyama Kim Kimbro Debbie Korbel Laura Larson Emily Maddigan Luke Matjas Zachary Mendoza Jen Meyer Lori Michelon Cynthia Minet Bobbie Moline-Kramer Stephen O’Donnell Lori Pond Robb Putnam Margo Ray Samuelle Richardson Laurie Sumiye Devin Thor Scott Yoell Tami Bahat A deep love for imperfect beauty and the belief that art is in everyone fuel my portraiture. As a conduit to other lifetimes, Bahat constructs stories of the past through the people of her present-day life. This series, Dramatis Personae, has given her a unique opportunity to exhibit her personal connection to history, and to share her deep longing for times that no longer exist. Bahat's father introduced her to the Old Masters when she was very young, which had an indelible impact on her. These artists spoke directly to her heart from hundreds of years away, never needing to utter a single word to explain themselves. This showed that it was possible to convey all kinds of emotion through window light, a quiet moment of reflection or even a simple object. Thus began her transition into painting through the use of a camera. The animals exhibited in this series are real. These beautiful creatures have a mind of their own which she admire and fully embrace. She respect their curiosity about the world, and that they bring immense wonder and unexpected moments to these scenes. She acquired a diverse collection of antique furniture, props and frames that carry their own stories and maintain an authenticity throughout the work. Through these items, a piece of history becomes entwined within a contemporary piece of art. It lifts her soul that their existence continues indefinitely. Clayton Campbell The two pieces in the show Peace On Earth are from a larger series called Wild Kingdom, created in 2014-15, and first exhibited at Coagula Curatorial. The show received a favorable critical response from writers Christopher Knight of the LA Times, Peter Frank in Artillery Magazine, and Lisa Derrick from the Huffington Post. He thinks these writers had interesting observations. Derrick said of his work, "In Wild Kingdom Campbell shows us that as individuals, our dependency on technology blind us to precipices and predators, to each other. We are living vicariously when we look at a diorama, we live vicariously-and allow each other to live vicariously- through social media." Christopher Knight hits the right note when he says "The signal being sent is sardonic-an elaborate engagement with the self absorbed condition of worldly disengagement. Perhaps they're as oblivious to one another as to the predators around them-or to the theatricality of the animals' representation. Who is tracking whom? And what's the difference between the insentient animals, wild or human?" And Peter Frank observes, "Keeping his production values modest-not tacky but not slick, either-Campbell piles the ludicrous on the poignant, pathos on bathos, in a hall of mirrors satire that keeps unfolding long after you've looked at his art works- and maybe taken a selfie with them." Catherine Coan Coan's hybrid taxidermy, installations, collages, Canary Suicides, and dioramas explore the psychological, sexual, and cultural intersections between wilderness, domesticity, and humanity. Imaginary creatures perch on human furniture in domestic spaces; Victorian prints become reflections on the relationship between child, adult, and pet; and jewel boxes translate as modern reliquaries for the saints’ bones of mice, insects, and HO-scale miniatures, all asking the viewer to engage with his or her own animal inside. Her looking glass reveals surprising details and a sense of humor at once dark and life-affirming, inviting the viewer to linger and become part of each tableau and installation. Coan's background in English literature and poetry (I am an English professor and published poet) imbues her work with literary reference and even some of her own writing. Nancy Evans The sculptures grow out of the bodily suggestions of plants. The figurative characteristics distorted by a construction process which pieces together various organic textures to form a whole. The stitched together appearance of the sculptures make sense; like the husks left behind by the transient body, they are both solid and illusionary. These sculptures anticipated a movement in contemporary sculpture that is totemic, crude, violent, and timeless. Archaic concepts, such as animism, infuse these works, suggesting that natural forms are the common thread that link the world to the collective unconscious. So the question that she ponders is where do images come from? How do es she track her influences? What does she understand and what does she misrepresent? James Griffith The ambition of the large painting, CORPUS COLLOSUS, is to imply that all living creatures are a part of one whole fluid process. The composition is held together by a gesture that suggests the double helix of a DNA molecule. The painting is populated by a range of animals that includes a fox/rabbit push-me-pull-you to represent process of Natural Selection, the primary force in evolution of species. The conceptual framework of the piece is further aided by the medium with which it is painted: tar. The tar is collected from the La Brea Tar Pits. To make his own asphalt um paint from this tar, he added thinners and stabilizers. His interest in tar is not only its unusual appearances, but also in the ideas associated with it. Tar is a primordial residue of extinct organisms concentrated by geological process over millions of years. Using tar as a substitute for traditional paint, places my images in the context of deep time so that his subjects can be considered in relation to the long cycles of evolution and extinction. Tar is also a type of the petrochemicals used to fuel our economies, a process at the heart of our contemporary ecological crisis. This fact tars the subjects of these works with the potential of their own extinction. Debbie Korbel Everyone knows what it is like to lie on their back and “see” images in the clouds. When she was a child, she would see images not only in the clouds but in many circumstances. The random patterns of linoleum flooring, plaster ceilings or even the way shadows fell across a wall would suggest figures or landscapes to me. As an adult, she approaches her sculpture materials the same way by standing back and looking for what she “see” emerge. She creates her assemblage sculptures by using the original sculpted elements combined with an assortment of objects she has collected. Often the initial impetus for the sculpture occurs when she finds some interesting fragment of metal or wood. Then an idea takes root and evolves from that “catalyst” piece. Every sculpture is like a puzzle for which she finds and fit each seemingly unrelated piece together in its most expressive form in order to create something new. Luke Matjas Over the past several years Matjas has developed a body of work that seeks to uncover the relationship between natural and unnatural histories. These explorations are largely representational, but far from traditional. Quite often his work looks like a cross between a natural history museum and the local Home Depot. More recently, these explorations have taken shape in a project called “Trail Work,” a series of vividly colored and crisply drawn trail signs inspired by time spent outside in open spaces. In many ways, these rambling little pieces are the result of literal rambles—in nearby mountains, through the scars of recent wildfires, and amidst fierce deserts. As a trail ultrarunner, he sometimes travel quite far on foot, and many of the visual cues found in this series are the result of direct encounters with regional flora, fauna, and geology. “Trail Work” combines a longtime interest in the aesthetics of scientific illustration, signage, and the irreverent renderings of skateboard graphics. These clean, sharply stylized pieces seem to stand in contrast to the gritty surroundings they portray, but there is a sense of immediacy in the graphic, hard-edged language. Although these trail signs are unconventional, they are still functional and directional. They seem ideally suited for the intersection of the expanding wildland-urban interface—they hint at the ecological fragility of our environment, and the not-so subtle ways we continue to impact our surroundings. Jen Meyer This triptych stems from a melding of two complimentary, yet individual, bodies of ongoing work from the artist. In one series, Meyer explores our traditional understanding of and relationship with animals. For this exhibition, her focus is on animals native to the Antelope Valley area: the coyote, the hare and the disappearing antelope. In the other series, Meyer explores the ways roses have been used to communicate to each other, both the living and those long since passed. Roses have since ancient times been left on gravestones as a symbol of regeneration. Merging these two bodies of work together for the first time for this exhibition, the viewer is left with a testament to the depiction of the natural impact of the human condition on ourselves, our planet, and our cohabitants in the plant and animal kingdoms. Laurie Michelon Pippa is from a series (Galaxial Gamines) where I sought to engage the viewer in a conversation about the clothing choices we all make everyday before going out to face the world. Pippa is an alien/human hybrid in haute couture and she represents us as well as our hidden selves - do we use clothing to hide? Provoke? Be admired? To belong? I believe it's all that and more. Cynthia Minet Migrations is an immersive installation of six illuminated sculptures of the Roseate Spoonbill. Carefully constructed of brightly colored plastics, LED lights and sound, the installation combines whimsy, serious social and political commentary, and a deep commitment to the preservation of our natural environment. First presented at the IMAS in McAllen, Texas, Minet's interpretations of the aquatic bird are intended as artistic surrogates for human experiences in the region. Native to the Southeast coastal regions, the Roseate Spoonbill migrates all the way to South America, and the Audubon Society considers this bird an indicator of the environmental health of the Gulf Coast. Minet’s sculptures are based on close study of the bird’s anatomical structure with a result that is highly realistic yet painfully fantastical. Additionally, artifacts found along the border with Mexico such as ear buds and Homeland Security bags are imbedded into the sculptures of Migrations. Motion-activated sounds of bird calls and footsteps enhance the viewer's experience. The use of found materials, whether migrant dropped or sourced from recycled household objects, expresses the underlying meanings of the installation. Through these discarded objects, Minet explores both the risks migrants take to escape intolerable situations and the specter of plastic which slowly erodes in our landfills but never disappears. Given the worldwide migrant crisis, Migrations is strikingly timely in its exploration of the complex social and political issues of borderlands, whether in the United States or worldwide. It is a conceptually and politically astute body of work that exudes a wry hope for our future: that we will commit to the care of our natural and human worlds. Stephen O' Donnell Throughout my career, animals - squirrels, dogs, monkeys, birds, mice - have played a frequent supporting role in his work; always an enlivening - humorous, tender - addition. In recent years, though, they've often begun to take center stage. This body of work explores the confrontation between the simplicity of Nature and the extreme artificiality of the most precious of our human craft: wild or mostly wild animals juxtaposed with fine jewelry, Nature versus the highest level of civilization. In most of these paintings my opposing "objects" - the animal and the jewel - are placed on a sort of stage: a simple wooden platform and a plain, flat background. An animal's imperatives are food, sex, and safety; only very rarely do animals display any impulse for adornment. An emerald necklace has utterly no use to a bird. So it's the unexpected proximity, the tension inherent in these meetings that tells the story; together on stage, in relationship but mutually purposeless. Humans have the striving intelligence and creativity to take shiny rocks, lumps of metal, grains from a seashell, and craft objects so desirable that people have killed one another to possess them. But it's ironic then that we could never assemble anything the equal of a mouse or a bird, never craft the muscle or claw, feather or fur. With all man's greed for beauty, for rarity, how is it so easy for us to overlook the infinitely more precious creation that is any of the seemingly insignificant creatures we share the planet with? Lori Pond When danger flares, what do you do? Since humans first experienced the fight or flight reflex, the subconscious brain has told us what, when, and whom to fear. This remains so. When faced with peril, our bodies respond with intensified adrenaline and racing heart beats. Survival depends on our instantaneous emotional response instructing us to run or stay, a millisecond before our rational self can decide. While our brains have not changed, what we fear has. It is rarely a carnivorous beast that triggers our instinct to run. It is pictures of burning skyscrapers, reports of schoolchildren crouching behind desks to hide from bullets, or a gathering of teens in hoodies that make us tremble: Our 21st Century litany of what to fear. But are these threats real? Pond's series “Menace” challenges us to question what we “know.” “Menace” confronts us with frightening, darkened, wild animals that trigger the ancient instinct, while our rational mind knows we are in a safe, civilized space, viewing images. We look longer, closer, and realize the threat was never there: these are taxidermied animals, their images captured in bright sunlit shops, manipulated later by the artist to ferocity. They frighten, but are impotent. Menace asks us to consider if our modern fears are justified, or if our contemporary bogeymen are figments of our imagination, mere empty threats manipulated by an unseen hand. Margo Ray ‘The Rat and the Octopus’ is a myth told throughout Polynesia that tells the story of an Octopus that was tricked into helping a deceptive Rat. The Rat was adrift at sea and made a deal with an Octopus to be carried safely to shore and in return it would give the Octopus a reward. Instead, it left a pile of dung on its head and ran away, the Octopus felt tricked and angry. Fishermen to this day still play on this anger, making rat-like lures to entice Octopus who still want to avenge the Rat This visual interpretation of the myth deals with contemporary local and global issues of broken agreements and kept promises through the personification of the Rat and Octopus characters; such as climate change, water rights, homelessness and humanities relationship to animals, spirituality and each other. The animals are set on a Polynesian navigation pattern, locating them adrift at sea trying to find their way to shore as well as in Polynesia, where the myth originated. The 10 Handshakes placed on a map key each represent the kept promise and broken agreement in each pair of characters. Samuelle Richardson Richardson sees our attraction to predators as a manifestation of human longing for things that are dangerous and beautiful. She believes that passion is evoked by the things that can annihilate us and shares a fascination for untamed realms, remembering close encounters with disquieting vulnerability. In Ghost Dogs, Richardson depicts wild dogs in the African Bush, isolated from human intervention. This group of sculpture conveys a dichotomy between savage and benign as the structures come together with opposing qualities. The gnarled and rough wood is paired with the crush and pull of fabric as it relates to skin over bone and attention is given to craft while embracing flaws in the material. Stitching the fabric over the finished structure secures it in place and unto itself, the stitching becomes a form of mark making. Most of the materials are found or discarded, such as tree branches and recycled clothing. Richardson’s process involves researching scores of pictures to find those that highlight the animal’s expression and movement. Each structure begins with attention to the skeleton and muscle groups emphasizing the asymmetry of the form. As she works with the pictures in front of her, she strives to create a sense of believability rather than realism, knowing that new information will lead to discovery. Educated in New York, Richardson’s art training ran for more than a decade in a self-directed curriculum. She studied at FIT, Parsons, School of Visual Art and the New York Academy of Art. She entered the industry as a commercial artist and was in charge of developing original artwork for the fashion industry. As for having an impact on her vision, she gives credit to years of travel, seeking venues that upend our everyday sense of normal. Laurie Sumiye - Ohana o Ka Manu Video Sumiye is a Hawai‘i-based artist, animator and documentary filmmaker who investigates environmental tensions between humans and nature. Her background in digital media informs her cross-disciplinary practice in drawing, painting, animation, video, sculpture and installation. She has exhibited her art in New York, Los Angeles, Hawai‘i and internationally, in the UK, South Africa and Brazil and screened her award-winning films at DOC NYC, BAM cinemaFest and PS1MoMA. She has an MFA in Integrated Media Arts from Hunter College, BA & BS in Art and Communications from Bradley University, and studied art at Lorenzo De Medici in Florence and Pratt Institute in New York. She spent 16 years working as an art director and designer in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. She returned to Hawaiʻi to work on her first long-form documentary, A PARADISE LOST, about a Hawaiian bird that sued to save itself from extinction. Laurie serves as Assistant Professor of Creative Media/Transmedia at the University of Hawaiʻi-West Oʻahu. She lives and works in Mililani, Hawai‘i. Devin Thor Thor's newest series of sculptures, Paleolithic Creatures, is an homage to our prehistoric ancestors and the animals they painted on cave walls. Those paintings provide powerful depictions of man's inherent drive to express himself through art. Hidden for millennia, but many looking as fresh as the day they were made, this ancient art shows representational animals that inhabited their world and sustained them with food and clothing. However, at the end of the last glacial period, about 10,000 years ago, the climate warmed dramatically and many Paleolithic animals became extinct. The only history of their ghostly existence are fossils and cave paintings. “With my art, I am inspired…to challenge the viewer to feel the natural spirit of inclusion. There is no corner of this planet that man does not live in, and no corner of which man has not caused change. We must be good stewards of this planet Earth, and remember that extinction is forever.” Scott Yoell Sometimes it came by road, other times it came by sea II This sculpture is composed of a flesh tone replica of Columbus’s mother ship, the Santa Maria. The ship is floating on the backs of bio-morphed rodents with human noses in place of their heads. The work explore the sociological and political weight of ideology, similes of plague and invasive dogmas coexisting in a utopia that has gone wildly wrong. Previous Next