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

< Back September 12 – December 27, 2020 Solo exhibitions: Kathy Ager Alex Garant Inga Guzyte Kayla Mahaffey Kevin Peterson Special group show curated by: Thinkspace Projects Special Installation by: Spenser Little The Lancaster Museum of Art and History, in collaboration with Los Angeles’ Thinkspace Projects, is pleased to present The New Vanguard III , a dynamic group exhibition of works by international artists working in the New Contemporary art movement. The highly anticipated follow up to 2018’s successful second iteration of The New Vanguard, on view in tandem with this year’s POW WOW! Antelope Valley will feature special solo projects by artists Kevin Peterson, Kayla Mahaffey, Kathy Ager and Alex Garant. The New Vanguard III , in keeping with the first two installments, will present a diverse and expansive group of curated new works. In addition to the solo exhibitions on view from Mahaffey, Peterson, Ager and Garant, we will also be presenting our ’Small Victories ’ group show focusing on suicide prevention and mental health. We’ve lost one of our greatest allies and friends and one of our rising stars to this ever growing epidemic in recent years. Sadly this issue is very wide spread in the creative community and we want to help raise awareness and funds. If it helps guide just one person out of the darkness, it was more than worth it to mount this collection of works. This special showcase will include new pieces by ABCNT, Adam Caldwell, Ador, AKACORLEONE, Allison Sommers, Angel Once, Anthony Hurd, Anthony Solano, Atomik, Brad Woodfin, Brian Mashburn, Bryan Valenzuela, Carl Cashman, Charlie Edmiston, Chloe Becky, Cinta Vidal, Clare Toms, Collin van der Sluijs, David Rice, Derek Gores, Dovie Golden, Dragon76, Drew Young, Edith Lebeau, Eduardo F. Angel, Erik Mark Sandberg, Frank Gonzales, Ghost Beard, Goopmassta, Hilda Palafox, Hola Lou, Huntz Liu, Imon Boy, Jaime Molina, Jeff Ejan, Jimmer Willmott, Kaplan Bunce, Kate Wadsworth, Kelly Vivanco, Ken Flewellyn, Kim Sielbeck, KOZ DOS, Lauren Hana Chai, Lauren YS, Linsey Levendall, Mando Marie, Manuel Zamudio, Mari Inukai, Max Sansing, McKenzie Fisk, Meggs, Molly Gruninger, Mwanel Pierre-Louis, Nicola Caredda, Patch Whisky, Ricky Watts, Roos van der Vliet, Saturno, Sergio Garcia, Shar Tuiasoa, Stephanie Buer, Tati Holt, Telmo Miel, TMRWLND, Waylon Horner, and Wiley Wallace. A movement unified as much by its diversity as its similitude, ‘New Contemporary’ has come to denote an important heterogeneity of styles, media, contexts, and activations over the course of its establishment since the 90s. Unified in its fledgling beginnings by a founding countercultural impulse searching for its own nomenclature, the New Contemporary movement’s shifting and inclusive designations have offered alternative narratives over the years to those popularized by the dominant art establishment and its conceptual predilections. Though stylistically disparate, the work belonging to this rapidly expansive movement reveals a desire to reference the popular, social, and subcultural domains of contemporary experience, grounding, rather than rarifying, imagery in the familiar. Looking to the urban landscape and the kaleidoscopic shift of individual identities within it, these artists use the figurative and narrative to anchor their work in the accessible and aesthetically relatable. A fundamentally democratic stance governs the ambitions of this new guard, ever in search of novel ways to expand rather than to contract. Kayla Mahaffey – Adrift Born and raised on Chicago’s South Side, Kayla Mahaffey (also known as KaylaMay) is quickly becoming one of the city’s most sought-after artists with her unique blend of flat, cartoon elements with brilliant photo-realism. Mahaffey’s work gives voice to the unheard stories of contemporary youth and, as explained by the artist, “serves as a guide to bring hope back into our daily lives by cherishing each moment, not in the mindset of an adult, but with the fresh eyes and imagination of a child.” Being born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, only ignited Mahaffey’s love for all things art. The artist elaborates, “seeing the struggle and the support from the community made my work evolve to a concept that is personal to me. I continue to further my technique and creativity in my field in order to paint a beautiful picture of a new world for those around me. Living in our society can be tough and most of the time we have to make the best of it. A wild imagination can take you so far, but at the end of the day we need to realize and observe the world around us. And the world around us is where I find my inspiration to paint. Colorful paintings that contain hints of whimsy and realism that tell a story of inner thoughts and personal issues that sometimes go unheard.” Inga Guzyte - Kindred Spirits Inga Guzyte is a sculptural-portraiture artist who melds her love of sculpture and skate culture into intricate, larger-than-life interpretations of powerful women. Guzyte utilizes recycled skateboards complete with scratches and scrapes conveying a sense of character, adding a “lived in” quality to her works, and portraying the authenticity of her art subjects. Her deconstruction of materials allows her to create the colors and shapes needed to produce a three-dimensional quality to her works. Through the exploration of important historical figures and social movements, Guzyte explores her humanity and encourages female viewers to ponder their thoughts on their own terms. Guzyte’s series of work, Kindred Spirits, pulls from her own experiences as a woman in male dominated fields such as: skateboarding, woodworking, and sculpture and the traumatic experience of being abandoned by her father in her formative years. From powerful female figures like Malala Yousafzai, to influential artists like Patssi Valdez and Alison Saar, Guzyte places the central crux of her works on the female experience. Her materials are discarded and broken, however, the end result is that which embodies graphic power and grace. Despite her use of recycled skateboards, every piece is carefully selected, providing a dimensional and complex quality to her pieces. Guzyte’s work provides a sense of catharsis in her own experiences, as she reflects and re-creates the stories of these influential women, she gains courage and strength. Guzyte was born in Lithuania and emigrated to Germany. Inspired by the skateboard culture of California, Guzyte moved to Santa Barbara, California. In 2011, she had her first exhibition in Santa Barbara and would soon move to New York City, showing her artworks in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Shortly thereafter, she would move to Switzerland to complete an art residency in Vienna, Austria. Guzyte would display her first piece in Switzerland and in 2017, her pieces would regularly be featured in group exhibitions. Guzyte received her Associate of Arts degree at Santa Barbara City College. She currently resides in Santa Barbara, California. Kathy Ager - Fool’s Gold Kathy Ager creates detailed still lifes that feel simultaneously Baroque and acerbically modern. Inspired by the 17th-century Golden Age of Dutch and Spanish painting, her imagery uses historical visual rhetoric to deliver intensely personal and emotively charged themes. A professional graphic designer-turned painter, this is Ager’s first complete body of work to date and includes ten new paintings. Ager begins her process with language – an idea or expression often gleaned from music, a book, or some other source that resonates personally. She then endeavors to resolve the concept visually through objects and composition, assembling a patchwork of references – some collective and shared from pop culture, others steeped in the idiosyncrasies of the personal. Both poetic and revelatory, Ager’s works feel charged with the simultaneous misery and beauty of contemporary appropriation – and express the current world through the formal repositories of the past to create anachronistic moments of resonance and delivery. Ever present amidst moments of undeniably expressed disappointment and disillusionment are redemptive linings, beautifully poignant discoveries, and playful, irreverent mirth. The seductive darkness with which Ager reveals universal human longings is both disarming and consuming. Broken hearts are offered up as organs in a bowl, skeletal memento mori abound, and dating feels about as abject in the modern world as butchery; books are stacked with suggestive spines, and flowers wither while fruit threatens to decay. The abattoir is never far from the transcendent ambitions of classical statuary in Ager’s world, while beauty is embroiled in the vulnerability of intimacy and self-exposure. Alex Garant - Deconstructing Identities Toronto-based, Canadian, Québéquois artist Alex Garant is a painter known for her hyper-realistically rendered Op Art portraits in which the faces and eyes of her subjects seem to skip their registers through image redoubling and superimposition, Garant is in search of the frenetic internal life of the sitter. Not unlike the fugitive flicker of a screen or the spectral layering of multiple film exposures, her portraits reveal an unsettling multiplicity, shifting beneath the subject’s surface. Garant creates faces that challenge the optics of identity and the reductive way in which it is perceived, with a visual gimmick that quite literally dislodges and displaces its coherence to produce skittering psychological images of fracture and ricochet. Garant has long been fascinated by the interaction of patterns and symmetry, and the resulting optics of their graphic repetition and layering. Her portraits begin with a series of superimposed drawings based on her sitters, actual individuals, and muses from her life, and pushes the familiar confines of portraiture to a newly strange and re-sensitized place of sensory confusion. Her subjects and their energy seem to erupt from within, testing the tensile seams of the skin, the body, as always, an insufficient vessel for the incongruous experience within. The artist’s labor-intensive oil paintings are meticulously executed, often incorporating patterning or other graphic elements and motifs to produce reverberating visual effects. Garant’s color palette ranges from the subtlety of realistic flesh tones to hyper-colored gradients, saturated pastels, and translucent gem-like washes of color. Her stylizations of these vertiginous portraits thrive in surreal kitsch to interrupt the apprehension of the subject, activating a process of invested viewing, that is of trying to “see” the person amidst the trappings of hallucinatory visual interference. The compelling and somewhat unsuccessful process of attempting to stabilize the image produces a fundamental feeling of perceptual instability, one that intensifies our stolen communion with an evasive subject. Kevin Peterson – Embers Kevin Peterson, a gifted hyperrealist painter, creates a fictional world in which innocence and collapse are brought into difficult proximity. His arresting images combine portraits of children accompanied by kindly sentient beasts in a state of kindred displacement. Alone, though together, in strangely desolate, richly graffitied urban scenes, these babes and their benevolent conspirators appear interchangeably as beacons of hope and symbols of dispossession. Peterson’s works harness a dystopian social hyperrealism through painstaking attention to every possible fraction and detail of the mundane in their execution – every contour is excised, every surface meticulously rendered. The weird crystal clarity of the hyperreal in the depiction of these desolate underpasses and structural ruins provides a starkly strange backdrop for elements of fairytale, like the fantastic alliances proposed between children and animals, and the magical narratives these allegiances imply. A psychologically poignant, if not ambiguous, feeling of transformation and hope lingers in these impossibly arresting scenes of solitary kids. The resilience they suggest is haunting, while the unsettling verity with which these vulnerable fictions are cast strike something in our shared fear of literal and figurative exposure. Always in search of poetic tension and compelling contrasts, Peterson alloys unlikely parts: beginnings and ends collide, the young appear in worn and weathered worlds, innocence is forced into experience, and the wild infringes upon the ‘civilizing’ city limits. In Wild, Peterson explores themes of protection and marginalization, staging wild animals, ironically, in the humanizing and civilizing charge of caregivers. Though a recurring suggestion in previous works, the role of the animal in a nearly shamanistic role as protector and watcher appears more overtly in the new. Small children are attended by wild bears, watchful raccoons, gentle fawns, mythic looking ravens, owls, and jungle cats, among others, as they hold a living and protective vigil against the crumbling architectures around them; their guardianship staged like a protective bulwark. Peterson’s hyperreal paintings are at times uncomfortably close in the pathos of their offerings; they remind us, too, of something uneasily present in us all, a childhood that haunts the posturing of all of our adulthoods. Ultimately, Peterson’s works offer beautifully jarring reminders of the need for redemptive outcomes in a disappointed time. Spenser Little - Illumination Devices Spenser Little is a self-taught artist who has been bending wire and carving wood for almost 20 years, allowing his creativity to morph into images that range from simple wordplay to complex portraits. He has related his wire work to a mixture of playing chess and illustration, as the problem-solving component of the work is what continues to inspire himself to create larger and more complex pieces. Some works contain moving components and multiple wires, but mostly the pieces are formed from one continuous piece of wire that is bent and molded to Little’s will. He has left the wire sculptures all over the world, in locations that range from the Eiffel Tower to the bottom of caves, their location selected with little discernment, only for the piece to be finally realized at the moment that someone discovers the surprise piece of art. Little has taken part in numerous POW! WOW! mural festivals in the past few years, which has exposed his work to an entire new audience via their network of art sites/blogs and having his work shared all over the world including the likes of the Antelope Valley (Lancaster, California); Long Beach, California; Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Honolulu, Hawaii; Israel; and San Jose, California. Regarding his new body of work, Spenser shares “To me, all art is a form of illumination devices. For this exhibition I have built a new series of mixed-media kinetic lamps. The lamps serve as bright facades for inner, hidden chambers. Looking through their constantly closing and opening doors, viewers are offered a peek at what makes them tick. Like the different layers we develop throughout our lives, we only allow certain people to see our most inner workings, while the majority are only able to see our polished exteriors. The lamp building process begins with the wood carving of the central character’s head. I then weld a round bar frame for the outline of the body. I don’t put much forethought into where the design will go, aesthetic or engineering wise, which allows me to adapt any spontaneous idea during the build. Once I have the legs and body welded out and sized to the wooden head, I begin to problem shoot the kinetic portion of the build. Which is the unnatural part for my purely sculptor’s brain. Once all of the kinetic components are complete, I clean and bake the paper skin on the lamp, allowing them to come to life.” Small Victories A group show focusing on suicide prevention and mental health. This special showcase will includes new pieces by Adam Caldwell, Ador, AKACORLEONE, Allison Sommers, Angel Once, Anthony Hurd, Anthony Solano, Atomik, Brad Woodfin, Brian Mashburn, Bryan Valenzuela, Carl Cashman, Charlie Edmiston, Chloe Becky, Cinta Vidal, Clare Toms, Collin van der Sluijs, David Rice, Derek Gores, Dovie Golden, Dragon76, Drew Young, Edith Lebeau, Eduardo F. Angel, Erik Mark Sandberg, Frank Gonzales, Ghost Beard, Goopmassta, Hilda Palafox, Hola Lou, Huntz Liu, Imon Boy, Jaime Molina, Jeff Ejan, Jimmer Willmott, Kaplan Bunce, Kate Wadsworth, Kelly Vivanco, Ken Flewellyn, Kim Sielbeck, KOZ DOS, Lauren Hana Chai, Lauren YS, Linsey Levendall, Mando Marie, Manuel Zamudio, Mari Inukai, Max Sansing, McKenzie Fisk, Meggs, Molly Gruninger, Mwanel Pierre-Louis, Nicola Caredda, Patch Whisky, Ricky Watts, Roos van der Vliet, Saturno, Sergio Garcia, Shar Tuiasoa, Stephanie Buer, Tati Holt, Telmo Miel, TMRWLND, Waylon Horner, and Wiley Wallace. Previous Next

< Back October 21 - December 30, 2018 Artists: Sandra Chevrier | Cages and the Allure of Freedom Seth Armstrong | Lil' Baja's Last Ride Craig 'Skibs' Barker | Suzy is a Surf Rocker Brooks Salzwedel | Rut in the Soil Featured Installations: Andrew Hem Dan Witz HOT TEA Isaac Cordal Jaune Laurence Vallieres Spenser Little The New Vanguard II, a dynamic group exhibition of works by international artists working in the New Contemporary art movement. The highly anticipated follow up to 2016's successful first iteration of The New Vanguard, on view in tandem with this year's POW WOW! Antelope Valley will feature special solo projects by artists Sandra Chevrier, Seth Armstrong, Craig 'Skibs' Barker, and Brooks Salzwedel. A sequel to what was in 2016 the most extensive presentation of work from the New Contemporary movement in a Southern Californian museum venue to date, The New Vanguard II, in keeping with the first, will present a diverse and expansive group of curated new works. The group show will include new pieces by ABCNT, Adam Caldwell, Alex Garant, Alex Hall, Alexandra Manukyan, Amy Sol, Andrew Schoultz, Benjamin Garcia, Brian Mashburn, Carl Cashman, CASE, Dan Witz, Drew Merritt, EINE, Ekundayo, Ermsy, Esao Andrews, Evoca1, Fernando Chamarelli, Fidia Falaschetti, Fintan Magee, Helen Bur, Hueman, Hula, Huntz Liu, Jaune, Joel Daniel Phillips, Jolene Lai, Juan Travieso, Kaili Smith, Kathy Ager, Kikyz1313, Laura Berger, Lauren YS, Lonac, Mark Dean Veca, Mars-1, Martin Whatson, Masakatsu Sashie, Meggs, Michael Reeder, Milu Correch, The Perez Bros, PichiAvo, RISK, Robert Xavier Burden, Robert Proch, Ronzo, Saner, Scott Listfield , Sergio Garcia, Seth Armstrong, Snik, Stephanie Buer, Super A, Super Future Kid, TikToy, Tran Nguyen, Van Arno, and Yosuke Ueno. Alongside the focused solo presentations by Chevrier, Armstrong, Barker, and Salzwedel, the exhibition will include site-specific installations by Andrew Hem, Dan Witz, HOTxTEA, Isaac Cordal, Jaune, Laurence Vallieres, and Spenser Little. A movement unified as much by its diversity as its similitude, 'New Contemporary' has come to denote an important heterogeneity of styles, media, contexts, and activations over the course of its establishment since the 90s. Unified in its fledgling beginnings by a founding countercultural impulse searching for its own nomenclature, the New Contemporary movement's shifting and inclusive designations have offered alternative narratives over the years to those popularized by the dominant art establishment and its conceptual predilections. Though stylistically disparate, the work belonging to this rapidly expansive movement reveals a desire to reference the popular, social, and subcultural domains of contemporary experience, grounding, rather than rarifying, imagery in the familiar. Looking to the urban landscape and the kaleidoscopic shift of individual identities within it, these artists use the figurative and narrative to anchor their work in the accessible and aesthetically relatable. A fundamentally democratic stance governs the ambitions of this new guard, ever in search of novel ways to expand rather than to contract. Sandra Chevrier - Cages and the Allure of Freedom Chevrier creates work that explores identity as a locus of competing imperatives and complex contradictions. Drawing parallels between the assumed invulnerability of the superhero and the impossible demands placed upon the contemporary individual, Chevrier creates literal and metaphoric masks by combining comic book imagery assembled from found and imagined sources. Her dystopian spin on the iconic figure of the superhero looks to reveal the flaws in the staged extroversion of a superficial veneer. In Cages and the Allure of Freedom, her first significant solo museum presentation, Chevrier showcases large-scale sculptural works for the first time including three massive portrait based reliefs alongside three life-sized, hand-painted busts complementing some of her largest two-dimensional acrylic on canvas works. Sandra Chevrier is a Montréal-based Canadian artist. Her work has been shown in Canada as well as in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe and Asia and in collections in Europe, the United States, Netherlands, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and Russia. Seth Armstrong - Lil' Baja's Last Ride Seth Armstrong creates paintings that arrest a sense of time. Some offer expansive views and others a contracted intimacy, moving freely in and out of public and private spaces to create intersecting narratives. Known for paintings that self-consciously capture the act of looking - whether as a voyeur in trespass or a participant in the landscape - Armstrong apprehends the simultaneity of the city as a place of endless, contingent narratives, jarring interruptions and suspenseful pauses. In Lil' Baja's Last Ride, the artist presents a sequential vignette of over ten new paintings in which his own car becomes an unlikely protagonist. His immersive approach to his subject matter often produces anecdotal adjuncts. Following several pilgrimages into the landscape between his home in LA and Lancaster for the exhibition, a route, incidentally, which also happens to have personal childhood significance for the artist, Armstrong's beloved beater and proverbial instrument of research, 'Lil' Baja,' caught fire and was partially incinerated in the museum's parking lot. The overarching narrative structure of the works feels ambiguously suspended somewhere between fiction, social realism, and personal history. In an ending befitting Armstrong's own penchant for cinematic turns, poetic hooks, and absurd knacks, Lil' Baja's Last Ride is an unexpected swan song in memoriam to an old friend's final expedition. Armstrong is a Los Angeles-based painter who holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from California College of Arts in San Francisco. His paintings have been exhibited throughout the United States and Europe. He is represented by Thinkspace Projects in Los Angeles, Vertical Gallery in London and Bold Hype Gallery in New York. His work has been featured in international art fairs such as SCOPE and the LA Art Show. Craig "Skibs: Barker - Suzy is a Surf Rocker Barker has been immersed in both the punk rock and surf culture of southern California since the early 1980s. His imagery, being informed by the print media and graphics of the subcultural terrain shaping the time period, reflects this upbringing. Influenced and surrounded by punk flyers, album covers, and surfing magazines, Barker began testing his artistic skills by initially making flyers and t-shirts for his punk bands and his friends. Barker’s work explores the junctions between past and present, memory and imagination, fantasy and reality, while creating a dialog between image and viewer. Barker’s most recent paintings infuse his long-standing love for painting and rendering the human female figure with his punk-fueled graphic design aesthetic. Mixing different approaches, techniques and mediums, he creates a sense of memory, personal history, and appreciation for the female form. Combining elements of pop culture and literary censorship, he creates layered scenes of voyeuristic playfulness. His artworks feel surreal and partial, yielding results of decontextualization. The way Barker frames his figurative subjects, his compositions feel like spontaneously taken polaroids. Born and raised in Huntington Beach, Barker has been exhibiting installations and his paintings in places such as Long Beach Museum of Art, Thinkspace Projects Los Angeles and was featured at MOAH in 2014. His work has been included in Newbrow and Juxtapoz magazines. Brooks Salzwedel - Rut in the Soil Obscuring the boundaries between actual and imagined landscapes, Salzwedel constructs light, delicate and translucent vistas that fluctuate between solid and ethereal states. These assembled works explore the juxtaposition of natural and simulated scenes, bringing together scant terrains and fabricated sierras with hazy atmospheres and primordial vegetation. Eroding woods and frosty, glacial peaks veil repressed settings, evoking a landscape untethered from this reality existing on the periphery of dreams. Salzwedel continues this series of ghostly, celestial worlds that are suspended indefinitely, the scenes often feel almost real but are undoubtedly conjured from vivid imagination. Salzwedel induces a sense of solitude through ephemeral, surreal fantasies of supernatural scenery using a combination of materials to create his mixed-media works. His drawings are comprised of graphite, mylar and resin, tape, colored pencil and ink. Salzwedel earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with honors and distinction at Pasadena Art Center College of Design in 2004. He has been featured in more than 50 blogs and publications and he has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions. His work has been displayed at renowned museums worldwide, including the Hammer Museum, MOCA, Honolulu Museum of Art and the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art. Salzwedel was born in Long Beach and works in Los Angeles, California. The New Vanguard II A movement unified as much by its diversity as its similitude, 'New Contemporary' has come to denote an important heterogeneity of styles, media, contexts, and activations over the course of its establishment since the 90s. Unified in its fledgling beginnings by a founding countercultural impulse searching for its own nomenclature, the New Contemporary movement's shifting and inclusive designations have offered alternative narratives over the years to those popularized by the dominant art establishment and its conceptual predilections. Though stylistically disparate, the work belonging to this rapidly expansive movement reveals a desire to reference the popular, social, and subcultural domains of contemporary experience, grounding, rather than rarifying, imagery in the familiar. Looking to the urban landscape and the kaleidoscopic shift of individual identities within it, these artists use the figurative and narrative to anchor their work in the accessible and aesthetically relatable. A fundamentally democratic stance governs the ambitions of this new guard, ever in search of novel ways to expand rather than to contract. A sequel to what was in 2016 the most extensive presentation of work from the New Contemporary movement in a Southern Californian museum venue to date, The New Vanguard II, in keeping with the first, presents a diverse and expansive group of curated new works. This group show includes new pieces by ABCNT, Adam Caldwell, Alex Garant, Alex Hall, Alexandra Manukyan, Amy Sol, Andrew Schoultz, Benjamin Garcia, Brian Mashburn, Carl Cashman, CASE, Dan Witz, Drew Merritt, EINE, Ekundayo, Ermsy, Esao Andrews, Evoca1, Fernando Chamarelli, Fidia Falaschetti, Fintan Magee, Helen Bur, Hueman, Hula, Huntz Liu, Jaune, Joel Daniel Phillips, Jolene Lai, Juan Travieso, Kaili Smith, Kathy Ager, Kikyz1313, Laura Berger, Lauren YS, Lonac, Mark Dean Veca, Mars-1, Martin Whatson, Masakatsu Sashie, Meggs, Michael Reeder, Milu Correch, The Perez Bros, PichiAvo, RISK, Robert Xavier Burden, Robert Proch, Ronzo, Saner, Scott Listfield , Sergio Garcia, Seth Armstrong, Skewville, Snik, Stephanie Buer, Super A, Super Future Kid, TikToy, Tran Nguyen, Van Arno and Yosuke Ueno. Previous Next

< Back August 26 - October 22, 2017 Curated by: Cynthia Penna & Art 1307 Alex Pinna Antonella Masetti Carlo Marcucci Marco Casentini Carla Viparelli Marco Casentini Max Coppeta Nicola Evangelisti Italian Summer by Cynthia Penna The Lancaster Museum of Art and History (MOAH) celebrates the rich and vibrant history of Italian artistic tradition by showcasing seven contemporary Italian artists in its newest exhibition, Estate Italiana. MOAH will be kicking off this exhibition with a free opening reception on Saturday, August 26, from 4 – 6 p.m., where the public may view the exhibition and meet each artist. Estate Italiana (Italian Summer) will be on view from Saturday, August 26 through Sunday, October 22. The exhibition is part of a cultural exchange program between the Lancaster Museum and ART1307, an arts institution headquartered in Naples, Italy. The exchange began in 2015 when ART1307 hosted an exhibition originating at MOAH. This summer’s exhibition features a breadth of work including paintings, sculptures, video installations, and murals. Guest curator Cynthia Penna writes, “There is no doubt that the great and immense history of Italian art hovers like a heavy and complex cloud over artists today.” Like the sons or daughters who live in the shadow of a famous parent, many contemporary Italian artists are crushed under the weight of the legacy of such masters as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, or Raphael just to name a few. The artists taking on this challenge in Estate Italiana are Alex Pinna, Antonella Masetti, Carla Viparelli, Carlo Marcucci, Max Coppeta, and Nicola Evangelisti. Marco Casentini, originally from La Spezia, Italy, will be joining the artists of Estate Italiana with the launch of his own traveling exhibition, Drive In, which will transform MOAH’s main gallery and showcase his vibrant collection of abstract paintings inspired by metropolitan architectural structures. With Drive In, the gallery becomes an immersive installation that envelops the spectator in geometric shapes and colors, created specifically in relation to the gallery itself. In doing so, Casentini aims to develop a complex relationship with the larger space and modify the perception of the viewer. This exhibit will also celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the Fiat 500 by wrapping the vehicle in a complementary design, which audiences will be able to visit at the Hunter Alfa Romeo/Fiat showroom at the Lancaster Auto Mall. Drive In will travel to Milan, Italy at the Bocconi Art Gallery of the University Bocconi and finish at the Reggia Reale di Caserta in Caserta, Italy after its launch here in Lancaster. On Sunday, September 3, at 2 p.m. visiting Italian artists will host a gallery walk-through, where they will speak about their work and artistic processes. Carla Viparelli will host a free artist talk to engage the community in conjunction with Estate Italiana on Sunday, October 8, from 2p.m. in the Museum’s South Gallery. The presentation will include an overview of her experience as a contemporary Italian artist and her current work on display. Estate Italiana is generously supported by the Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation, ART 1307, Best Western – Desert Poppy Inn, Hunter Alfa Romeo/Fiat, Fregoso Outdoor Foundation, Visco Financial Insurance Services, LookUp, and the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles. Alex Pinna Alex Pinna began his artistic practice with a focus on the world of childhood culture, comics and fairy tales. Since those early days, he has created many divergent works, breathing life into a world of essential figures constructed from a variety of materials, including bronze, rope, wood and glass, whose main features are elegance, balance and irony. In a series of site-specific sculptures created specifically for Estate Italiana, Pinna tackles the theme humanity in moments of action, reflection, meditation and solitude; his aim is not the physical body but the existential condition of man. These genderless bodies, with gigantic limbs attached to slender trunks and shaved heads that give no indication of sex, symbolize the condition of being human, rather than that of having a personality. Slender figures that seem to face efforts that go beyond what a human being can manage, who support enormous walls with their bodies to prevent them from collapsing, who lift the globe or rest on it, sitting in precarious equilibrium—we seem to be dealing with a hero from Greek mythology, a Hercules tackling challenge after challenge. Pinna has recreated a mythological metaphor within a contemporary world. His personalities are merely the heroes of the past. These themes have also inspired the artist’s “puppet theatres,” made from Moleskine® notebooks turned into pop-outs that reveal different characters and personalities. In these works, Pinna uses an object that travellers have utilized for decades to jot down their experiences, a journal that is personal yet universal, a diary we may all identify with, which tells stories once opened. It is the quintessential theatre. Indeed, what is theatre, from Greek tragedy to comedy, but an uninterrupted telling of a story, of lives and explorations? The Moleskine® becomes at the same time theatre and book, opening to reveal a pop-out scene, a fragment of life, an instant or an eternity, a kind of theatre “set,” of collective and individual life. Alex Pinna was born in Imperia and attended Brera Fine Arts Academy in Milan, earning a Master of Fine Arts in painting. In 1991, he collaborated with Allan Kaprow, creating the 7 Environments exhibition, which showed at the Mudima gallery in Milan and Naples. He began teaching in 1996 has continuously exhibited in museums and galleries since 1997. Pinna is currently a professof of sculpture at the Cantanzaro Academy of Fine Arts. Antonella Masetti In the artists’ universe the viewer may recognize a thread within the Italian tradition that has progressed from the landscapes just visible in the background of de Vinci’s paintings, to the more massive and powerful bodies of Michelangelo, to the intellectual sophistication of the works of Piero della Francesca or Bronzino. Antonella Masetti Lucarella has made the Italian tradition of painting from Humanism to Mannerism her own, rendering it on her canvases. Her color choices further confirm the fact that her works are part of the Italian traditional heritage. Masetti’s women are immersed in their everyday life, there is no banal or empty sentimentalism in them, but pulsating sentiments: they suffer, laugh, participate and fight. These women, to whom a considerable body of the artist’s work is dedicated, are gentle warriors; they sometimes show complicity, but are also self-aware and conscious of their power. The female universe is finally seen and described from within. Masetti’s women have no need to show off, assume attitudes, or play a role. Her women are, and they know; in other words, they are conscious of their existence and interiority. Antonella Masetti Lucarella is an internationally known painter who has worked in Milan for over 25 years. She has shown her work in solo and group exhibitions in art galleries, museums, cultural centers and art fairs throughout Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Hungary, Peru and Japan. In 1991, she received D&D Art Magazine’s III International Prize and in 2000 her sketch, commemorating Rome’s International Symposium on Breast Cancer, was printed and issued as a stamp by Poste Italiane (the Italian General Post Office). Carla Viparelli Carla Viparelli is a self-taught figurative artist who graduated in philosophy from the University of Naples. Her paintings have evolved over about 30 years, in the course of which she has experienced with different kinds of figurative art. Viparelli’s artistic research centers principally on nature, its different aspects and its countless transformations, but she also explores social happenings and the contemporary common sentiment. A consistent part of her work has been dedicated to language and its different means of expression: mainly through images but also sometimes through writing. In many of her works the artist has connected the two modes of expression, creating a kind of vocabulary by images and writings that dialogue among them, with mood that vacillates between serious and facetious. Carla Viparelli was born in Naples and received both a Bachelor and Master cum laude in Philosophy at the University of Naples, where she completed a thesis in Contemporary Art. Throughout her career, she has received many awards, including: first prize at the International Painting Contest, Borgo San Severino, in 2009, first prize in the Postcards Assissi contest in 2014 and first prize in 100 Cubed—100 Rooms for 100 Artists, at Art Hotel Grand Paradiso in Sorrento. In 2012, she founded and directed Chi cerca, Crea, a workshop in the Municipality of Maratea. She currently lives and works in Naples and Maratea. Carlo Marcucci Italian born but Californian by choice, Carlo Marcucci embodies the benefits of embracing two cultures which are quite different in many aspects. The fusion of two traditions takes place at the moment when acceptance of what is new and different is assimilated and included among the treasures of a more remote past, without sacrificing either the old nor the new heritage. What makes Marcucci unique is that he succeeds in merging morals, usages and traditions without any reverential fear of altering a particular reality or tradition. The equilibrium necessary to achieve this takes the form of an innovative and unusual use of materials, in this case from the culinary heritage of the artist’s native country. Spaghetti, which plays an important role in the collective imagination of Italian culture, both in Italy and abroad, is deprived of its original function and used to create works of art. Wheatfields was made primarily from spaghetti, as if to confirm that the blending of customs and traditions is an appanage of the arts. Marcucci succeeds in decontextualizing pasta from its basic, traditional function as food, making it serve as nutrition for the mind and spirit, in an arrangement that is both constructivist and geometric, its elements combining to create a mural of sculpture. The goal is to of alter the intrinsic nature of the object, effecting a transformation meant to instate another function. The works featuring binders utilize a similar process: these stationery items are selected and catalogued by colour and dimension, then reassembled as geometric structures. When hung on the wall, the metal of the binders reflects light, transforming the original material into a work of art. Carlo Marcucci was born in Florence, Italy to American artist Sallie Whistler Marcucci and Italian journalist Moreno Marcucci. He grew up in downtown Rome, where he attended St. Stephen's International School, located next to the Circus Maximus, before moving to Atlanta, Georgia, to study design at the Atlanta College of Art (now SCAD Atlanta). He worked as a graphic designer and signage expert at Jan Lorenc Design and Wagner/Bruker Design in Atlanta. His first solo exhibition was held at the Ann Jacob Gallery in Atlanta. After moving to Los Angeles in 1990, Marcucci worked at Disney Imagineering in signage and graphic design, for the EuroDisney park in Serris/Coupvray, France. His first California exhibition was held at the Creative Art Center Gallery in Burbank. Marco Casentini: Drive In Born in La Spezia, Italy in 1961, Marco Casentini was brought up surrounded by large metropolitan structures. Inspired by urban spaces, Casentini’s work is an abstraction of geometrical architecture. Both chaotic and serene, his work rejects the concept of a compositional center which has always been a historically important approach to traditional Italian and European art; a choice that allows the spectator’s eye to focus on the painting as a whole. As individual paintings they add rhythmic tension to otherwise quiet and relaxing spaces, thereby achieving the ability to evoke emotions through his striking juxtapositions of color and complexity of shape and composition rather than through the use of concrete imagery. His early work was composed from advanced planning, notes and precise drawings. Over time Casentini felt this implementation gave his work an undesirable machine-like quality. In an attempt to breathe intimacy back into his work he stopped planning and began relying on his own intuition and improvisation. Galleries exhibiting Casentini’s paintings are often transformed into vibrant and immersive installations that match the colors and patterns of the work on display. Wall paintings are developed in relation to the particular interior space involved and are birthed separately from the work on display. Once together, the paintings are no longer isolated and instead interact harmoniously with each other and the space as a whole. In doing so Casentini is able to develop a complex relationship with the larger space and modify its perception by the viewer. It is virtually impossible for one to separate the paintings from the installation due to being encompassed within a body of shapes and colors that communicate with each other with such intense solidarity. Marco Casentini attended Accademia di Belle Arti and College of Art in Carrara, Italy, resides both in Los Angeles and Milan today and has exhibited internationally with galleries in Italy, the United States, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Australia, and Austria, exhibiting over 40 solo shows since 1983. Max Coppeta Max Coppeta is an artist for whom the heritage of traditional kinetic art, developed throughout the last century, rests heavily on his shoulders. This movement is thought to have begun in Europe with the optical experiments of artists such as Vasarely, but the real birth of a specific kinetic art can be attributed to the studies of those influenced by the group of Argentinian artists who moved to Paris in 1958, creating the GRAV movement at the Denise Renè Gallery. Coppeta’s artistic research centres on a number of fundamental aspects: the countless possible views which a work of art offers the onlooker, the necessary and inevitable participation of the spectator in the enjoyment of the work—which may be defined as a kinetic aspect of the whole—and the distortion of visual perception. The artist’s Synthetic Rains were created by calculating and calibrating the fall of a crystalline liquid onto a glass support, with maniacal precision. The descent of the drop is regulated by a gesture that is a function of the time it takes for the drop to fall, its space and distance from the support, and occasionally the climatic conditions of drying. There are always more than two drops and two glass supports, which are aligned in such a way that the drops of liquid are encompassed by one another visually, with such precision that the onlooker may look through their succession. The resulting view appears distorted, giving the observer an impression of being deformed, through a kind of destabilizing vision. This experience may be defined as a journey within vision. A movement, enacted as the onlooker is placed in front of the work, determines an unreal movement in the piece; the user, relating physically to the art through his or her movement, gets an impression of him or herself that may be defined as a new “discovery” or a new kind of visual perception. Max Coppeta was born in Sarno; he received a Bachelor’s in art at Accademia di Belle Arti Napoli in Naples, and a Master’s in Interaction Design at Istituto Superiore Design in Torino, Barcelona and Stockholm. He currently lives and works in Bellona. Nicola Evangelisti The central theme of Nicola Evangelisti’s work focuses on visual perception and how the onlooker relates to his works and the effects created by light radiating from them. Trained with traditional materials and techniques, Evangelisti’s practice originates and evolves from a legacy of Italian sculpture. Experimentation led the artist to follow what he describes as “a transcendent path:” using crystals, mirrors, glass, holograms and LEDs, his works gradually dematerialize in time, ultimately becoming pure light in the form of video projections that interact with urban space. Most of the artist’s work explores the relationship between order and chaos as well as other cosmological theories. Hexagons is conceptually inspired by the theme of sacred geometry. Consisting of a structure made from thirteen reflecting hexagons that in turn form another hexagonal image, the sculpture is based on the principle of self-similarity in universal structures. The work, seen as a whole, superimposes the archetypal image of the flower of life, symbol of birth and creation, which represents a constant in different cultures and beliefs throughout the history of Man. The diagram features the same form as the single mirrored parts, creating a correspondence between detail and the whole, a fractal development which could, in theory, continue in an infinity of scales, thus forming a continuity between microcosm and macrocosm. The lines of electroluminescent wire crossing the hexagons creates a complicated weave, wherein the five Platonic solids can simultaneously be perceived. The “constellation”—inspired by Kepler’s theory of polyhedra in which polyhedral faces are continually extended until they meet again—is formed by intertwining luminescent fibres that create the illusion of a diamond structure, wherein different coexisting regular polygons can be distinguished. If Evangelisti’s work is wholly contemporary in terms of technological composition, it is rooted in an ancient historic and artistic heritage: Roman mosaics. Hexagons draws inspiration from the modular geometry found in Roman tessellations. The aesthetics of the home have always been a vivid and faithful mirror of culture: if we consider the characteristics of the Roman domus—and especially what is left of such mansions in Pompeii—one of the essential aspects appears to be the way rooms are divided and arranged in space, forming a domestic plan with precise and complex geometries, as Vitruvio described so instructively in his “De Architectura”. The geometric elements used to decorate sumptuous patrician mansions formed symmetrical images which often featured symbols associated with war: swords, daggers, and stylized mythological creatures, testimonials of a civilization that never ceased to transcend itself. This is the peculiar “thirst for power” which, in the role of master of the Roman mansion, took the form of elaborate decorations. Nicola Evangelisti was born in Bologna, Italy, and graduated with a degree in sculpture from the Bologna Fine Arts Academy. In 2016, his solo show beWARe opened at Area 35 Art Gallery in Milan; analyzing the emotional states induced by violence and mass media propaganda, it explores the social and political themes related to war and terrorism. Previous Next

< Back November 22, 2014 - January 11, 2015 Being Here and There Curated by Sant Khalsa Main Gallery Sant Khalsa: Paving Paradise Atrium 1st & 2nd Floors Carol Sears: Linescapes South Gallery Hollis Cooper: In Flux Education Gallery Kim Abeles: Shared Skies East Gallery Julius Eastman: State of Wonder Vault Gallery Jill Sykes: Yucca Forest Jewel Box Gallery Kelly Berg: Dangerous Transcendence Wells Fargo Gallery Being Here and There Curated by Sant Khalsa Being Here and There features photographic works by twenty-six artists whose imagery derives from their individual and contemplative experience of place. Situated among an array of topographies and ecosystems from the desert to the sea, each of their creative works provides us with a unique view and perspective of a spectacular landscape, unlike any other. These artists are contemporary surveyors, seeking to depict and give meaning to this place where we live. For many artists, “place” profoundly influences their ideas, process and production and this is certainly reflected in these artists’ work. Their vision is diverse and vast like the landscape and people of Southern California, which is characterized by populated urban clusters and suburban sprawl, congested freeways, crowded workplaces, malls and amusement parks in contrast to the seemingly infinite ocean, towering mountains, expansive deserts, immense blue skies and quiet solitude. We live in a delightful climate where outdoor living is taken for granted yet we are troubled by earthquakes, droughts, fires and floods. The destiny we have manifested in the American West—and more specifically in Southern California—is riddled with contradictions and complexities. We awake each morning feeling fortunate to live in paradise. Yet, as our day unfolds, we are reminded of the actions of history and scars left on the land. Each artist’s work in the exhibition is distinct in its concept, content and approach, providing us with an opportunity to view and gain understanding of the significance of the everyday – that which is extraordinary within one’s experience as well as the ordinary and often overlooked. The subjects of these photographs vary greatly with certain artists compelled to address our human impact on the natural world and ecological issues including water use and scarcity, air quality, land development and the detritus of our consumer culture, while others focus on visual aesthetics, the beauty of light and color and the sometimes harmonious juxtapositions of nature and the built environment. For several artists the experience of time—capturing the illusive fleeting moment or extending it—is paramount to their artistic concerns. Artworks that recall histories and memories along with premonitions of the future suggest that we ponder our human acts and inaction on the land and in our communities. Demarcation and the creation of ambiguous boundaries are also explored as we traverse through contested terrains. While most of the artists choose to leave the sites of their photographs untouched, there are a few who alter the scene or intervene in distinct ways or even place themselves within the image. Additionally, artists who have altered and added to the surface of the photograph, by cutting, scratching and sewing to further define their ideas, subject and character of their work are included to demonstrate the breadth of approaches among artists working today. Finally, images are flawlessly composited to present astonishing detail and expansive spaces while other works are produced with multiple photographs assembled together to replicate the artist’s visual and perceptual experience of time and space. These photographic works developed from each artist’s creative impulse to visually articulate and convey their independent vision of our remarkable Southern California landscape. Clearly evident is their expertise as perceptive observers and visual poets who savor and artfully capture the experience of being present in this place we call home. - Sant Khalsa Sant Khalsa: Paving Paradise I often refer to the Santa Ana River as “my river.” Never intending “my” to allude to ownership or control but rather an intimate relationship one develops over time with a lover or a dear old friend. The Santa Ana River serves as a source of vital sustenance for my body, mind and creative spirit. The river is the life source that nourishes the earth and every living cell in the community where I reside. The river has taught me the critical interdependence between humans and the natural world and inspires me to make art that reflects on my life experience and relationship with place. I have been photographing the 96-mile-long Santa Ana River and its expansive watershed for nearly three decades. My work is intended to create a contemplative space where one can sense the subtle and profound connections between themselves, the natural world and our constructed settings. My often disquieting photographs address complex environmental and societal issues and reflect upon my various ideas concerning my/our relationship with the river -- as place of community, economic resource, recreational site, natural habitat, sanctuary and both source of life and destruction. Paving Paradise refers to the current state of the river and the conflicting terrain of natural riverbeds and dams, flood plains and tract home communities, riparian wetlands and concrete channels. I was first drawn to the Santa Ana because of its natural beauty—the vast open landscape, the starkness of its often-dry riverbeds and the power of its occasional rushing waters. The river remains a source of creative inspiration as I continue to depict the critical role it plays within the region, my home since 1975. —Sant Khalsa Carol Sears: Linescapes Los Angeles-based artist Carol Sears was born in Sydney, Australia in 1942. In the early 1960s she studied at Sydney’s prestigious Julian Ashton Studio. Sears moved to San Diego in 1965 where she was employed in the newly established art department of the University of California San Diego. There she came into contact with experimental artists such as John Baldessari, Miriam Schapiro, Harold Cohen and Newton & Helen Harrison. Since 1972, when she moved to Los Angeles, Sears studied life drawing at UCLA and sculpture at the Claire Hanzakas studio while exhibiting and pursuing independent studio work of her own. Sears classical art education in Australia and her training in more modern idioms in California all translate into highly expressive artworks overlaid with the influence of such modern masters as Matisse, Picasso and de Kooning. She painted a diverse array of subject matter: from portraits and figures to studio and plein-air landscapes, floral and wildlife subjects and whatever else she thought others would fancy. Sears notes “it was a burden to be able to work in whatever style or medium I wanted and sought to redefine my path based on my early years as a young artist who first appeared at the Julian Ashton School of Art in Sydney, innocent, idealistic and free of any baggage.” MOAH is pleased to present this new body of work, where Sears strives to retain the treasures of a long, full, creative life accumulated through decades of experience, but to use them with the clarity of the young mind. It is a balance she seeks; to be centered but spontaneous; to welcome “accidents” and to be intuitive, in touch with the unconscious and the natural self; to relish discovery. Linescapes is a visual record of this new beginning. The exhibition encompasses all that she has done, seen and wanted to do throughout her artistic career but could never give herself permission before this moment. Sears is not alone in this struggle. By telling her story and painting her paintings, Sears gives permission to artists who may be resisting finding their own voices in an art market driven by commercialism rather than innovation. Sears’ abstractions depict her personal vocabulary, an independent voice of remarkable light, scale, color and texture coming through the spirit of intuition and walking into her own light. Sears explains a deep feeling of belonging when she is painting in her studio, “I feel whole when I am in my studio with my canvases and drawing pads, interpolating and translating the memories and impressions of my native Australia. The symbols and metaphors in my art reflect the qualities of texture, light and color particular to the immense Australian landscape and seascape. To these influences I’ve added my appreciation of other landscapes and the aesthetics and values of other cultures garnered from my world travels.” Sears is represented by Coagula Curatorial in Chinatown, Los Angeles and has enjoyed solo shows at Lawrence Fine Art - East Hampton, New York and group shows at Andrew Shire Gallery, Los Angeles CA, TAG (The Artists Gallery) Santa Monica, CA and UCLA Art Department. Sears continues to live and work in Los Angeles. Hollis Cooper: In Flux The work of Los Angeles-based artist Hollis Cooper straddles the line between site-specific installation, drawing and painting. Cooper’s practice engages perceptual, painterly and physical space in ways influenced by concepts of virtual reality and the Baroque, where multiple spatial models that have been folded and spliced into one another coexist in harmony. Into these hyperspaces, Cooper re-introduces elements of Baroque excess and theatricality, such as intense color and visual cues that break the two-dimensional plane. Cooper’s approach towards creating painterly space is intimately connected with the viewer's ability to activate that space, which includes not only the flat surfaces of the painted elements, but the entire architectural space in which the installation resides. The viewer is encouraged to interact in unconventional ways; movement, changes in distance and shifts in sight-line are rewarded. In a manner reminiscent of Baroque illusionism, multiple privileged viewing spots are created where the work settles into predetermined perceptual configurations. These paintings do not sit still; instead, they exist within a responsive matrix that rejects a traditional, more fixed engagement with the idea of the painted object. Cooper’s current practice is grounded in tenets of Supermodernism; specifically, ideas of "non-place." Her source material comes from digital drawings of theoretical architecture: 3D chatroom renderings, video game environments and physical "non-places" such as airports and train stations. Rather than looking at "non-places" as transitory spaces lacking content or meaning, she regards them as loci of infinite possibility. Through the digitization process, Cooper detaches these source drawings from a fixed state and focuses on their mutability and evolution. She considers these drawings to be a language in and of themselves, a foundational element used universally throughout her work and she exploits the flexibility of their original vector format to make them function at extreme scales and in multiple media. Like expansive landscapes, the installations perform at the largest scale, yet assembled modularly in situ, they respond to the interior architectural environment in which they exist, activating the space in a way that negates the "non-place-ness" of the museum's white walls, even if only for the length of the exhibition. The animations, in their constant state of flux, references the transitory nature of the original sources and operate on the viewer in a decidedly different manner, as they become worlds unto themselves, pulling the viewer out of the moment, for a moment. Throughout her work is a sense of fracturing, motion and reformation in the way the installations are layered and painted, as well as in the controlled chaos of the animation. This cycle also occurs in the studio, as she remixes iterations of form as each piece is constructed. Thus, these works that began as a cataloging of non-place are imparted meaning through the rhythmic (re)inscription of their own history. For all aspects of the work, whether physical or virtual, there is a sense of responsiveness, of negotiation, of push-and-pull. Cooper intends for these works to have both a machine and human aesthetic, becoming a cyborg creation of sorts that is not just a formal exploration of spatial concepts, but the organic progeny of them – an evolution of form, responding to the computer, her self and her surroundings. Kim Abeles: Shared Skies The work of Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist Kim Abeles includes many genres and involves specialists in diverse fields of study and community groups of all ages. She works on projects worldwide and maintains an open mind to multiple modes of visual art. Abeles focuses on subjects including the urban environment, feminism, aging, HIV/AIDS, labor, mental health and collective memory. Through the years, Abeles has acquired a uniquely broad skill-set for art making. Technically, she creates through an unlimited range of materials and conceptually, the development of her work heightened her interest in community, public venues and art’s relevance for society. In 2012, her journals, artists books and process-related objects were archived at the internationally renowned Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art. The preparation of these materials gave her a fresh perspective on the relationship between the biographical and environmental themes in her work. As her work progressed, the inter-relationship between art and community has become seamless. Abeles notes “Art that provides a viewer with meaningful portrayals of nature and society is in service to re-engage a person with the physical world; this is where positive change has a possibility to take place. If one does not love the world, that same person will not imagine a need to protect it.” In the Shared Skies series, Abeles invites people from all walks of life, all over the world to submit a photograph of the sky in their part of the world. Abeles selects from the submittals and creates the horizontal slivers of sky as a kind of archive of the atmosphere and the element we all share: the air. Shared Skies speaks to the connections between global, local and personal. As people look toward the sky each morning, through the day or each night, the sky speaks to their personal and local concerns. In a global sense, we observe the effects of our environmental decisions and could find community through a seamless sky. From the Salt Flats of Bolivia to Grand Forks in the United States and Maasai Mara, Kenya to Pine Ridge, Oglala Sioux Tribe, our skies portray the connected parts of our place on this earth. The sky photographs for the project were collected through Kim Abeles’ journeys; from artists who participated as they travelled; and international friends through social media. Each sky is identified with the specific location and the name of the person who took the photograph. The sky photographs represent countries from the Arctic to Antarctica and all the continents. The project was originally commissioned by the YMCA, in association with the former Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles, California for a public artwork. Suspended sculptures with the skies are permanently installed in the lobby and entrance to the new Anderson-Munger Family YMCA in Koreatown. The art literally describes the global nature of the YMCA and the connections of people worldwide by having at its core, imagery of skies found around the globe. The exhibition of prints was displayed at the gallery of the National Center for Atmospheric Research located at the I.M. Pei building in Boulder, Colorado during Spring 2014. Abeles created 60 Days of Los Angeles Sky Patch (View to the East) by building a simple contraption for viewing a section of sky through a small opening. Each day, for sixty days, she made a painting to match the sky color of this spot of sky looking from downtown Los Angeles toward Riverside, California. The sixty paintings are the result of that process and a curiosity about sky blue. Among her many honors, Abeles has been a recipient of the Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Arts, California Community Foundation, Pollack-Krasner Foundation and the California Arts Council. She is a 2014/15 Lucas Visual Arts Fellow at the Montalvo Arts Center. She has created artwork in conjunction with a unique range of collaborators such as the California Bureau of Automotive Repair, California Science Center, Department of Mental Health and natural history museums in California, Colorado and Florida. In 1987, she innovated a method to create images from the smog in the air, and Smog Collectors brought her work to national and international attention. She has exhibited in 20+ countries, including large-scale installations in Vietnam, Thailand, Czech Republic, England, China and South Korea. Kim Abeles: Encyclopedia Persona A-Z toured the United States and throughout South America sponsored by the United States Information Agency. She has an MFA in Studio Art from the University of California Irvine and a BFA in Painting from Ohio University. Q & A with Julius Eastman: State of Wonder Q: What is your background? As a self-taught artist, art has always been an escape for me, something that takes you away. It has been a part of me ever since I can remember. As a kid growing up in the high desert I spent a lot of time outdoors. The desert was a place where my friends and I could go and dig subterranean hang outs, sculpt elaborate bike tracks; essentially do anything we wanted. Lancaster wasn’t always a place where a teen could really do much, especially for me, since I was on the seedier edge of town; the desert was what there was. I have spent my whole life in the desert and it still fascinates me. Q: What are you currently working on? For this exhibition I am working on new landscapes with acrylics on canvas and Bristol. One in particular shows the influence that Los Angeles, graffiti art and urban art have had on my work; it also depicts the water crisis that we as a region are facing. In addition, I am collaborating with a writer on a set of abstract images. The idea is to have each of the paintings paired with text to create a more specific narrative. I am also working on a decent sized installation project; another collaborative effort that is going to be a combination of re-purposed furniture cut into pieces, tiny figures and scaled down objects in a series of tiny rooms depicting life in the desert with people and animals. Q: What sources do you use for creating your pieces? Most of the imagery in my pieces—and in numerous cases—comes from my collective memory of an area that I am trying to recreate as opposed to using stock photography. Since I mainly paint from mental pictures and memory, I try to be in those elements as often as I can. Though I admit I do use some reference, I collect photos more for the memory than for later use. I study things and do sketches and drawings of things that I see in nature, I really enjoy creating an impression of those things. I watched this video of flowers going into bloom in accelerated time and they looked like fireworks bursting in air to me. I wanted to capture that and it caused me to look at plants and paint them in different ways. Memory is biased and it imbues everything with a saturating layer of feelings that cannot easily be separated from an image generated from memory and by hand. When a person does something by hand it is automatically subject to the same fragility and flaws that people have; it’s innately human. A photo can capture a moment or show us points of view that most might have missed and it takes a certain mind to do that too but creating that image by hand is an entirely different journey. From my point of view technology, as valuable a tool as it has become, is also taking something from us. It’s like we are, consciously or not, using technology as a tool to eliminate ourselves from any and every aspect of everyday life, even art. Q: What themes are you pursuing in your work? As a landscape painter, the high deserts of the western region have greatly impacted my work. There are strange microclimates and harsh conditions here that produce plants that have incredible character compared to plants that have grown in more stable conditions. We have harsh winds, extreme temperatures and droughts; couple that with the occasional El Niño and you have organisms that have been shaped by an unpredictable environment, organisms that have been through something and look like it. I have been to almost every state park in California and all of the major National parks in the region and there is no other biome that provides more interest in my opinion. At a glance the desert appears to be little more than a few sage bushes or Joshua trees and not much else, yet it has one of the greatest densities of life of any biome. Nothing is wasted or taken for granted and that is the lesson humanity can learn. As we move towards technology and away from instinct we are losing our spiritual connection to the land. Every tiny thing is part of an infinitely elaborate web of life that is delicately balanced. How a persons life can be affected by something as insignificant to us as an ant can seem impossible and yet everyday science vindicates this as we discover just how interconnected we are and how much we rely on the land as well as its creatures; one form of life relies on another and so on. Every living thing eventually links back to us, not to mention we make the largest impact of any creature and are among the most numerous. Q: How do these themes show up in your work? How can they not? As much as I try to have a solid idea of what I want to do as a piece, in the end when I wake up and pull back the curtains and it’s threatening to rain, it’s going into the piece. It’s an instant reaction. The weather in the AV has a certain melancholy luster to it that has always appealed to me so I paint it trying to convey that feeling. You know the feeling of being in the desert and needing the rain so bad you could cry when it does, or how the wind can blow every direction at once here somehow? We always seem to get the edge of all of the weather patterns around us, but never the full hit. Combine these elements with my fascination of the underground LA art scene, or at least it was still underground at the time, and you get these impressions of an area with hints of LA. My first exposure to “LA” art was through graffiti art, I remember going to Hollywood to see Melrose Ave. I was with some friends and we had gone down an alley right off Melrose and I saw forms of expression that were not “taught” in art classes or discussed in the art books I had seen. I was blown away. It was not limited to the back alleys either, there was art everywhere; some of it was commissioned in stores and on store fronts, and some of it was done in guerilla fashion: meaning It was stenciled onto the sidewalks, it was slapped onto every available surface with stickers or glued as small posters and even though it was thousands of different people, there was a common thread that made it urban that I can’t really describe except to say, that when you saw it you knew it was uniquely urban. Now of course, these things have made their way into mainstream society, I mean you can see graffiti style art on a Mountain Dew can or in a kids show, it’s everywhere. It’s not underground anymore, but the same mentality that spawned the guerilla art is the same movement that continues to push every envelope from the alleys to a gallery wall. Q: What are your goals as an artist? To be able to continue to paint and show work as often as I can. I think that I am not unlike any artist in the sense that I would love for art to be something that supports me and I plan to take this as far as I can in that regard. On a more personal level, I want to hone an ability to express something that passes from me to someone else and I don't want it to be shock value; I want it to be obvious and fragile like people are. I want to make landscape paintings that capture the feeling of an area as well as mirror the unique beauty that so many areas in our region have. I want people to be able to smell the dank desert air when they look at one of my works. I want art to remain something that captivates me. Jill Sykes: Yucca Forest Jill Sykes focuses on the silhouetted shapes of plants and the negative spaces between the branches and leaves. Based on this work, a few years ago she was commissioned to design an overall “pattern” of sycamore leaf shadows that were sandblasted onto the outside walls of a new home – Sycamore House – under construction in Pacific Palisades; the MOAH yucca trees follow a similar design concept. For the “Jewel Box” windows she decided to focus specifically on indigenous plants of the Mojave Desert. Driving back and forth on the highways between Los Angeles and Lancaster the tall and stately yuccas are everywhere. Beginning with some spontaneous iPhone photography, Sykes amassed dozens of images of the trees. This photographic research became the basis for drawings which ultimately were translated into 18 approximately 10’ high tree silhouettes cut out of white vinyl and adhered onto the inside of the “Jewel Box” windows. Clustered together on the glass the artist envisioned a “Yucca Forest,” with huge, lacey white blossoms in various stages of development floating in air above and beyond the blooming yuccas. She was also fascinated by the tall, burnt-out skeletal trees – beautiful, gnarly sentinels showing age and decay in the desert. The contrast was sensuous and dramatic. Looking close-up inside the museum, the viewer will be able to see the abstracted and amorphic shapes that ultimately form the individual trees; seen from a distance on the street below, the silhouetted yuccas will overlap each other and create more visual depth, ever changing depending upon where one stands. Sykes is drawn to the negative spaces of branches and leaves; the elegance and energy of natural forms and the visual dialog between figuration and abstraction. The random patterning of incumbent shadows and inherent contrasts affords an expressionistic push-pull, creating a lyrical flow in the shapes that spin a web across a sensuous, translucent surface. Ultimately what Sykes has come to realize about her work is that it is a search for a kind of serenity - a safe place. Rene Magritte once said, “I am painting a place where I want to be.” Jill Sykes was born and raised in Los Angeles and completed her formal art training at Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles and the Academy of Art/Lone Mountain College in San Francisco. She worked as a graphic designer and illustrator in the fields of film and business advertising, animation and educational media, as well as designing and implementing countless corporate logos. Over time her work became focused on painting and in the late 1990's she enrolled at the Santa Monica School of Design, Art & Architecture. This led to her current work in oils, printmaking and now vinyl - all explorations of color, shape, movement and mood. Kelly Berg: Dangerous Transcendence In Dangerous Transcendence, artist Kelly Berg’s paintings ride the jagged edge between beauty and destruction. Through the use of acrylic paint, Berg creates textured gestural surfaces with accents of delicate enameled line work. The paintings invite the viewer into mysterious cataclysmic scenes in local and faraway landscapes. The local landscape is seen in Berg’s Vasquez Inferno, a panorama of wildfire engulfing Vasquez Rocks. Located just down the highway from Lancaster’s Museum of Art and History, this iconic geologic formation was made famous by its history of bandits and the imagination of Sci-fi Hollywood. Similarly, in El Diablo de Los Angeles, the viewer is looking through a window framed in thick black acrylic and pointing toward the glowing burning hills east of Los Angeles. This is a scene from the summer of 2009 when Berg moved west from Minnesota to her new home in Echo Park. She recalls walking out into the street at night and looking into the distance at the mountains behind Glendale “burning like the fires of hell.” Other paintings suggest distant places: volcanic islands in the Pacific Ocean, abstracted lightning scenes and fissures caused by earthquakes. Whether depicting near or far off landscapes, each painting presents the viewer with a personalized view that almost tricks one into thinking the disasters are a bit friendlier than in reality. Berg’s intent is to introduce audiences to a current global theme through an autobiographical point of view. The iridescent and metallic acrylics specific to these works give a jewel-like quality to dangerous phenomena, while the thick, sculpted black paint suggests the aftermath. Berg’s connection to extreme weather began in her native Minnesota. At age 12 she experienced a near miss with a tornado. The artist cites this experience and other close encounters as a major influence on the new direction in her work. In addition to reflecting on her personal familiarity with natural phenomena, Berg’s suite of paintings connects to the sublime. Defined as a sensation triggered by the perception of extreme expansiveness in nature, the sublime often refers to experiencing transcendent scenes and moments in the landscape where the awe and wonder of nature dwarfs one’s own self image. The psychological effects of experiencing the sublime are described as simultaneous feelings of fear and attraction for the danger and greatness of the natural world. Foreboding storm clouds, erupting volcanoes and overwhelming vistas have been a subject matter for artists working with the concept of the sublime throughout art history, as seen in the works of J.M.W. Turner, (1775 – 1851), Albert Bierstadt (1830 – 1902) and others of the Hudson River School. Berg draws from this legacy while bringing her work into the now through her monochrome color palettes, deeply textured canvases and autobiographical narratives. Kelly Berg was born in Concord, Massachusetts in 1986. Her family moved to Wayzata, Minnesota in 1989 where she grew up drawing and painting from an early age. As a young student, Berg was inspired by her travels to the National Parks and frequent visits to the Walker Art Center and The Minneapolis Institute of Art. Berg received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Rhode Island School of Design in 2008. As a Los Angeles-based artist since 2009, Berg has enjoyed two solo exhibitions at Frank Pictures Gallery in Bergamot Station, Santa Monica. Bergs’s work was recently featured in two museum exhibitions “Art for Art's Sake: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation” at The Barrick Museum (Las Vegas, NV), and “California Art: Selections from the Frederick R. Weisman Foundation” at the Carnegie Art Museum (Oxnard, CA). Berg was one of eight Los Angeles artists selected by the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery 825 to participate in the Simply Perfect Art Project, an artist residency at the iconic Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood in 2011. Berg is published in Whitehot Magazine, OC Weekly, and featured in the Figure/Ground Artist interview series and the arts issue of the Venice Argonaut Newspaper. Berg is collected by the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation and is in numerous private collections. Previous Next

< Back February 13 - April 17, 2016 Jeremy Kidd: The Interrupted Landscape Lynn Aldrich: Water Feature / Silver Lining Fawn Rodgers: Subject Charles Hood: Under/Water Christine Mugnolo: California Hydroscape Coleen Sterritt: Selected Works from 2010 - 2016 Ann Weber: Jewel LAGI: The Future of Energy is Here HCA: Glue Zoo Green Revolution utilizes art and environmental education as a creative catalyst for leading greener, more sustainable lives. Sponsored by Lancaster Choice Energy and sPower, the diverse artworks on display will incorporate recycled materials; addressing urban farming and gardening, sustainable design, water harvesting and renewable energy such as wind and solar power. Jeremy Kidd: The Interrupted Landscape British-born, Los Angeles based artist Jeremy Kidd approaches landscape photography innovatively, by combining sculptural elements and condensing up to 100 long exposure photographs into a single work. He believes this to be a more cohesive way of expressing a landscape pictorially to an audience. Incorporating sculptural elements invigorates the viewing experience. Through this process, Kidd explores movement and condensed time; all the while exemplifying the transcendental and the essence of place in the urban or desert landscape. “It seems unrealistic to expect a single photographic shot, a single moment in time, to convey the human experience of seeing.” - Jeremy Kidd His artwork presents a condensed vision of multiple photographs as a metaphor for repeated perceptual glances. This in turn engages the viewer by conveying an animated experience of the dynamic natural or urban infrastructure. Kidd’s current body of work explores the presence of Wind Farm Turbines whose placement interrupts the natural landscape with a beautiful array of upright forms that possess a surreal presence and scale. Combining the wind farm components with his photographic process, Kidd believes, will draw awareness to both the arts and alternative energy and bring into question their aesthetic placement. Integrating sculpture with his photographs, Kidd includes replicas of the windmills that move forward out of the images as sublime objects embracing and interacting with the viewer. The works attempt to explore our relationship to these interrupted landscapes as places for spiritual renewal and functional utility. Jeremy Kidd received his Bachelor of Fine Art and Sculpture at Du Monfort University in Leicester, England. His work has been exhibited across the United States and Europe. He has been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Art LTD, Art & Text Wired Magazine and The Observer UK. He has taught at the California Institute for the Arts and Otis Parsons School of the Arts in Los Angeles. He has upcoming one person shows at Imago Gallery Palm Desert and Panorama Masdag Museum in the Netherlands. Lynn Aldrich: Water Feature / Silver Lining The art of Lynn Aldrich is inspired by landscape, light and color in nature, and aspects of various natural environments, focusing on familiar objects from the everyday world and transforming them structurally in order to create a deep sense of mystery for the viewer. The objects are deviated from function, and added to with imaginative aspects, altering their state to a greater significance, but not in a theatrical sense. The objects must remain familiar to the viewer to celebrate and question the ordinary in its new form. She creates the new objects with references to the experience of living in a culture that is fragmented and oriented toward artificiality and consumerism. The incentive for her artwork is to increase perception and wonderment while instigating powerful questions – to create a platform for both conceptual analysis and poetic reflection in the mind of the viewer. She invokes a sort of transparent alchemy that allows these ordinary objects to remain common even as they may take on a more precious value, carrying metaphorical weight or spiritual significance. Lynn Aldrich received a Bachelor degree in English Literature from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a Bachelor of Fine Art from California State University, Northridge and a Master of Fine Art from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Her work has been exhibited nationally and across Europe. Aldrich is part of the public collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In 2014, she received the Guggenheim Fellowship Award in Creative Arts. Fawn Rogers: Subject Fawn Rogers is a LA based contemporary artist. Rogers’ interest of entropy, anthropology and evolution come together in a deck of cards entitled Subject inspired by a produce truck driveshaft and the most fertile soil (Terra Petra) found in California. The installation creates a propositional composition of a closed system with man-made objects, nature and the by-product of biotechnology. The artist invites the viewers to watch super weeds grow from the soil under the resurfaced produce truck drive shafts where organic and inorganic compounds slowly reach chemical equilibrium through the sedimentation of time, as nature gradually re-establishes its ecological balance beyond our existence. As part of the installation Rogers invited 52 California artists to represent produce currently farmed in California as works of art on a deck of oversized playing cards through their own interpretations knowing water would be represented on the joker cards. The artists represent a vast spectrum from very established to outsider.Fawn Rogers’ wide-ranging practice reflects and challenges the interrelations between nature, structures of ideological power and various models of social constructs. Her work has been featured in ArtNET News, Forbes Magazine, The Creators Project, Italian Vogue, and the Huffington Post. Charles Hood: Under/Water “Resource allocation is always a tricky business. Who has priority if a commodity is scarce? The 400-mile-long Los Angeles Aqueduct cuts through the west end of the Antelope Valley on its journey to Los Angeles, and at full capacity, 5,000 gallons of water per second roar through its well-bolted, 12 foot diameter pipes. How much of that is allocated for local use? None. In a classic case of ‘look but don’t touch,’ the water races past us, headed for wealthier towns.” – Charles Hood Charles Hood seeks to consider the visual and political statements this engineering project makes; his photography installation surveys a generous portion of the Aqueduct itself. The documentary photos fill 30 feet of gallery wall in two parallel rows. The top half captures the stark, modernist beauty of land, pipe and sky, often creating two intense bands of abstract color. Beneath that, each panel has a mirrored twin, and in those inverted shots, the sky becomes a parallel river beneath the main Aqueduct itself—the memory or echo of the resources being taken from one landscape and delivered to another. Water’s importance in our daily lives is further explored with an immersive soundscape. The sound fills the gallery in a subtle way, and is built out of recordings of everyday household water uses (washing hands, changing the water in a fish tank) when combined into a sound experience, create an aural river to complement the visual one. Charles Hood teaches at Antelope Valley College and is a research fellow with the Center for Art Environment, Nevada Museum of Art. He also has been an artist-in-residence with Playa Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Center for Land Use Interpretation, and the Annenberg Beach House. His tenth book, illustrated by Christine Mugnolo, won the 2016 Kenneth Patchen Innovation Fiction Award and will be released next summer. Christine Mugnolo: California Hydroscape Christine Mugnolo seeks to help residents, visitors and community groups appreciate the value of water—and the ingenuity and complexity of its delivery infrastructure—via a wall-sized, watercolor map of California’s water network showing the state’s major water resources, storage facilities and distribution systems. Layering complex data sets, this map attempts to communicate a simple, pressing concept: the huge and cumbersome discrepancy between the state’s supply and demand for water. While maps assert knowledge and authority over resources, they also function as sentimental emblems for one’s love of place. California Hydroscape straddles and navigates both operations. By turning the state 90 degrees to its side, this map pushes against two concepts implied by California’s iconic vertical status: that California is proudly self-sufficient and that water flows logically from north to south. This assemblage of hand-painted panels combines the practice of mapping with the aesthetics of painting. Together, the paper panels create a legible map of California while showing how the Colorado River, California Aqueduct, Los Angeles Aqueduct and groundwater aquifers all combine to provide water that is anywhere from three years to 10,000 years old. Saturation is used to indicate the age of the water (vibrant colors at the source and less saturated colors for the final destination). Further, this does not operate as purely an informational map, as the liquid properties of the medium are exploited to create chaotic and dynamic transitions. Liquid properties are intended to reference water’s animation and call attention to the map as an image of the lifespan of water, rather than as an objective record of cataloged data. This visceral visual language likens California to a body and its water systems to life-giving vascular operations. In this way, Mugnolo uses the sensual properties of watercolor to help create a more personal, intimate connection to California’s water systems. Christine Mugnolo is Associate Professor in the Art Department at Antelope Valley College. She received her Bachelor Degree in Art History from Princeton University, a Master Degree in Early Modern British Art from Courtauld Institute of Art in London, a Master of Fine Art concentrated in painting and printmaking from the University of Connecticut and a Master of Fine Art in painting from Indiana University. Mugnolo has been exhibited nationally. Coleen Sterritt: Selected Works from 2010 - 2016 For close to 40 years, sculptor Coleen Sterritt has worked with a variety of materials ranging from plaster and tar, pinecones and fishing line, found furniture and studio waste. With this range of materials, she focuses on the interactions between organic and geometric forms, balance and imbalance, the intimate and remote. Sterritt explains her technique as being both immediate and studied while also abrupt and fluid. The sculptures Sterritt creates play with movement and chance; doubt, discomfort and desire, beginning sometimes in one direction and then turned upside down upon completion. She creates forms indicative of a nature to culture convergence. As a process of re-creation the material rehabilitates and reinvents itself to become rediscovered by the viewer and interact with them in a new way. She fashions a visual language both formal and evocative while exploring the many possibilities the sculpture itself can hold. All these elements combined, act as a barometer for lived experiences Sterritt hopes the viewer will find familiar as they interact with the pieces. Coleen Sterritt was born in Morris, Illinois. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Art from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and a Master of Fine Art from Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles. She began teaching in 1983, including positions at Otis College of Art and Design, University of Southern California and Claremont Graduate University. She has been a professor and the faculty coordinator of the sculpture program at Long Beach City College since 1998. Sterritt is a recipient of residencies, grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1986, Art Matters in 1994, the Roswell Art-in-Residence Program in 1994, the J. Paul Getty Trust Fund for the Visual Art/California Community Foundation in 1996 and the City of Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship in 2007. Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe. Ann Weber: Site Specific Ann Weber began her artistic journey with ceramics, creating functional pottery. Inspired by her days working with Viola Frey at California College of Arts and Crafts, the scale of her artwork shifted to monumental forms. She began working with cardboard as a way to create lightweight forms, while eliminating the cumbersome process of the clay. Weber sees her abstract sculptures as metaphors for life experiences, such as the balancing act that defines life. Ultimately, Weber’s interest lies in expanding the possibilities of making beauty from a common and mundane material. She views the psychological component of her artwork as one of the most important aspects. Being between representational and abstract, Weber invites the viewers to bring their own associations to the artwork. The artwork is composed with a palette of simple circles and cylinder forms, representing the symbolic male and female forms in the natural world, and tying in architecture and art historical references to evoke memories, relationships and morality in the sculptures. When it comes to her public art, Weber casts ordinary cardboard into bronze and fiberglass, illustrating that things are not always what they appear to be. Even when cast in other materials, it is easy to see the details of the former lives of cardboard boxes and individual staples. Born in Jackson, Michigan, Ann Weber now works and resides between Emeryville and Los Angeles. She received a Bachelor of Art degree in art history from Purdue University and a Master’s of Fine Art from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. Weber has been an artist in residence at the International School of Beijing, China, and Schwandorf, Germany, as well as a visiting artist at the American Academy of Rome. In 2004, she was awarded the Public Art Award by Americans for the Arts. Her artwork has been chosen as part of public art and private commissions across the United States. LAGI: The Future of Energy is Here The main goal of the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) is to design and construct public art installations that have the added benefit of utility-scale renewable energy generation. Each sculpture continuously distribute sclean energy into the electrical grid, resulting in thousands of homes powered by art. Presenting the power plant as public artwork—simultaneously enhancing the environment, increasing livability, providing a venue for learning and stimulating local economic development—is a way to address a variety of issues from the perspective of the ecologically concerned artist and designer. By nature of its functional utility, the work also sets itself into many other overlapping disciplines from architecture and urban design to mechanical engineering and environmental science. This interdisciplinary result has the effect of both enhancing the level of innovation and broadening the audience for the work. The Land Art Generator Initiative utilizes the design competition model as a free and open platform to engage as many interdisciplinary teams of artists, architects, scientists, ecologists, landscape architects, and engineers around the world as possible to conceptualize aesthetic and pragmatic solutions for 21st century environmental challenges. The results of the competition are made public in exhibitions, workshops, literature, and educational materials to inspire the general public about the potential of our energy landscapes. HCA: Glue Zoo Glue Zoo combines art, design and science into a one-of-a-kind program serving multiple affordable-housing communities in the Antelope Valley. Free of cost to residents and under the guidance of on-site instructors, participants of Glue Zoo produced papier-mâché sculptures of endangered animals. Through creating life-sized versions of our planet’s disappearing species, students focused on building both engineering and design skill sets. In addition to making sculptures, students also learned about the animals being created as well as current conservation efforts and what they can do at home to help minimize their carbon footprint. Participants of the program were asked to bring in recycled newspaper, cardboard and other materials to help bring the creations to life. Previous Next

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

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

< Back June 2021-October 2022 It is often forgotten that the true history of places such as Lancaster extends far beyond the range of pioneer settlement. In fact, Native communities have been existing within the Antelope Valley and surrounding areas for some 12,000 years or more. As such, it is important to remember that these Native populations have been here much longer than commonly acknowledged, and are still here! To this end, First People, First Communities attempts to honor the Antelope Valley’s First People by recognizing this extensive history of local Native populations and engaging with living tribal members. Through a collection of cultural artifacts, photographs and quotes from tribal elders, First People, First Communities offers a glimpse into the true time depth of Native American presence in the Antelope Valley as well as the significant role these groups play in contemporary society. Here, the past and present are merged to assert the extensive role of Native Americans within our community. This exhibit bridges the time span, connecting present-day Native peoples with their far-reaching past while offering perspectives that are often neglected in contemporary narratives. This exhibit was initially inspired by the Lancaster Museum of Art and History’s wish to dedicate the land the museum is on to the people who lived here first. To do so, we reached out to Dr. Bruce Love, an Antelope Valley resident, anthropologist, and archaeologist, who collaborated with local tribal communities. Dr. Love earned his Ph.D in anthropology from UCLA in the 1980s, and has since worked to build and maintain relationships between archaeologists, anthropologists and contemporary tribal communities within the Antelope Valley and surrounding areas. Acknowledgements are made to participating tribal communities including Serrano, Chemehuevi, Kawaiisu, Kitanemuk, and Tataviam , as well as Paiute . Special thanks are made to Tribal Elders Charles Wood, Ralph Girado, Lucille Girado Hicks, Ted Garcia, Kim Marcus, and Ernest Siva for their contributions, as well as Tejon Indian Tribe chairman Octavio Escobedo for providing the portrait and quote from the last Kitanemuk chief, Chief Juan Lozada. First People, First Communities Panel Discussion with Tribal Leaders Thursday, July 16, 2020 | 6 PM Moderated by: Dr. Bruce Love Panelists: James Ramos, State Assemblyman, Serrano Charles Wood, Chairman, Chemehuevi Indian Tribe Sandra Hernandez , Executive Committee Secretary, Tejon Indian Tribe (Kitanemuk) Rudy Ortega, Jr., Tribal President, Fernandeño -Tataviam Band of Mission Indians Previous Next

< Back 2022-2023 Tina Dille's artwork echoes inspiration from the natural wildlife and domesticated animals of the Tehachapi Mountains. The personalities of the animals she coexists with fuel her distinctive animal portraits, giving life and spirit to each friendly face. The most impactful muse arrived with a rescued, semi-tamed raven named Penut. The crafty and charismatic personality of Penut became a fulfilling and influential source of creative energy for Dille. The Muse reflects the wonder and personalities of Penut through various depictions of ravens. The animals' eyes are a focal point of her creative intent, while the rest of the piece is composed of the natural forms and shapes of watercolor and fluid acrylic mediums. The splattering, flowing, and dripping of the paint is part accident and part skill, creating a unique art piece that cannot be duplicated. Dille began her artistic career at a young age; early on, she was drawn to the livestock and ranchers in her hometown of Jerome, Idaho, and the backyard creatures she discovered when her family moved to Southern California. As an adult, Dille operated a small ceramics business that created and sold hand-painted ceramic animal figurines nationwide. Dille relocated to the Tehachapi Mountains in 2006 to focus on fine art and immerse herself in the area's natural wildlife. Previous Next

< Back Desert Forest: Life with Joshua Trees September 7 - December 29, 2024 The Lancaster Museum of Art and History (MOAH) has partnered with the Getty, and 70+ other organizations, for PST ART: Art & Science Collide . On Saturday, September 7, the Lancaster Museum of Art and History will open Desert Forest: Life with Joshua Trees , as part of the Getty PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative. The exhibition sheds light on the threatened Joshua tree and the fragile Mojave Desert ecosystem that sustains it. The project integrates natural history, indigenous knowledge, public policy, scientific research, and artistic expressions to emphasize the challenges facing the Joshua tree and conservation efforts. With a focus on the impact of climate change, development, wildfires, and other threats, the exhibition explores the symbiotic relationships between Joshua trees, soil fungi, and moth pollinators, engaging a diverse audience interested in arts and environmental issues. Desert Forest features more than 50 historical and contemporary artists who have produced artworks that exemplify a range of ideas across myriad practices. The exhibition will remain on view from Saturday, September 7, 2024 to Sunday, December 29, 2024. Southern California’s landmark arts event, PST ART, returns in September 2024 with more than 70 exhibitions from museums and other institutions across the region, all exploring the intersections of art and science, both past and present. Dozens of cultural, scientific, and community organizations will join the latest edition, PST ART: Art & Science Collide , with exhibitions on subjects ranging from ancient cosmologies to Indigenous sci-fi, and from environmental justice to artificial intelligence. Art & Science Collide will share groundbreaking research, create indelible experiences for the public, and generate new ways of understanding our complex world. PST ART is presented by Getty. For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide , please visit pst.art Sant Khalsa, Curator and Juniper Harrower, Associate Curator Featuring contemporary artworks by Linda Alterwitz, Marthe Aponte, Madena Asbell, Nancy Baker Cahill, Diane Best, Darin Boville, Matthew Brandt, Fred Brashear Jr, Bill Leigh Brewer, Claudia Bucher, Bureau of Linguistical Reality, Gerald Clarke, Maryrose Crook, Torreya Cummings, James M Dailey, Scott B. Davis, Department of Floristic Welfare, Dani Dodge, Edgar Fabián Frías, Rob Grad, Jennifer Gunlock, Juniper Harrower, Jessie Homer French, Christine Huhn, Monroe Isenberg, Adriene Jenik, Jetsonorama (Chip Thomas), Jenny Kane, Yulia Kazakova, Sant Khalsa, Casey Kiernan, Stevie Love, Rebecca Lowry, Meg Madison, Aline Mare, Chris McCaw, Paloma Menéndez, Eric Merrell, Chelsea Mosher, Daisuke Okamoto,Michelle Robinson, Cara Romero, Catherine Ruane, Ed Ruscha, Hiroyuki Seo, Kim Stringfellow, Ruth Wallen, Jennifer Valenzuela, and Danielle Giudici Wallis; and historical artworks by Sarah E. Blanchard, Ralph D. Cornell, E.O. Hoppé, Olive Jackson, Gerald D. Jeffers, Charles Koppel, Jane Pinheiro, Betty Warner and Carleton Watkins. Previous Next

< Back January 22 - April 16, 2022 The Lancaster Museum of Art and History is opening its latest exhibition season, Activation , a series of solo exhibitions from artists Mark Steven Greenfield, April Bey, Paul Stephen Benjamin, Carla Jay Harris, and Keith Collins. The opening reception for Activation will be held on Saturday, January 22, 2022 from 4 to 6 p.m., in tandem with What Would You Say? Activist Graphics from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the second exhibition in its Local Access series. The exhibitions will remain on view until April 16, 2022. April Bey The Opulent Blerd Raised in The Bahamas, Los Angeles-based artist April Bey provides reflective and social critique of American and Bahamian cultures. Her artworks are often weaponized with concepts of Afrofuturism, a genre of speculative fiction regarding the future and significance of peoples and cultures within the African Diaspora. Pop culture, racial construct, and feminism are some of the many topics that Bey discusses. Research, material, and processes are crucial contributors to Bey’s work, she often travels on a national and international scale, allowing her to gather experience, material, and cultural information directly from the source. Using an Afrofuturist lens, Bey repurposes familiar brands, phrases, and portraits to create what she refers to as her “rule-based” and “process based” artworks. Across graphic design, installations, paintings, prints, collages, videos, and handmade artist books, she creates visual commentary on the world’s rapidly increasing set of issues. Bey considers her work a physical representation of “power dynamics destroyed and radically alien views.” Her utilization of witty humor, along with her close attention to texture and color are visually striking, purposefully drawing viewers to decipher the message before them. April Bey is both a practicing contemporary artist and art educator. She is currently a tenured professor at Glendale College and is well known for teaching a controversial course, Pretty Hurts, at the Art Center College of Design. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drawing in 2009 from Ball State University and her Master of Fine Arts in Painting in 2014 at California State University, Northridge in Los Angeles. Bey is in the permanent collection of the California African American Museum, the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas, and Baha Mar in Nassau, Bahamas. She has exhibited internationally in biennials NE7, NE8, and NE9 in The Bahamas, and in Italy, Spain, and Ghana. Carla Jay Harris A Season in the Wilderness Born in Indiana while her father was stationed at Fort Benjamin, Carla Jay Harris spent most of her childhood in flux, moving every two or three years in and out of the United States. “My nomadic childhood is what, in part, has attracted me to photography. The camera is a way for me to attach permanence,” she says. “A Season in the Wilderness” is the most recent development of “Celestial Bodies”, an ongoing series by Harris, which stems from her experiences as a ‘third-culture kid’ — feeling othered by race, culture, language, and nationality. “Throughout history, mythology has served humankind’s need to understand its surroundings... Through myth-making, I have been able to tap into a sense of belonging that extends from a connection to universal cultural concerns and narratives,” Harris says. Carla Jay Harris trained as a photographer and cinematographer, working in the commercial art field in New York for nearly ten years before committing herself to a contemporary art practice in 2011. In 2013, she moved to Southern California to earn her Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, and has stayed in the area ever since. Over the last decade, Carla Jay Harris’ artistic practice has evolved to include installation, collage, and drawing in addition to photographic methods. Harris has exhibited extensively in California and on the East Coast, participating in solo, two-person, and group exhibitions. She has received numerous awards, grants, residencies, and fellowships, and her work can be found in the collections of the California African American Museum in Los Angeles, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, and the Lancaster Museum of Art and History, among others. Keith Collins Ali Keith Collins is an American visual artist and designer who specializes in large-scale tapestries, performance and luxury automotive floor mats, oil paintings, and industrial assemblage sculptures. His work has adorned the walls of galleries and homes alike, blending the domestic and the commercial space. Inspired by instances of quilt making with his aunt, Collins has been interested in the re-use of material. “I went down to several carpet stores, jumped into their bins and risked the coffee grounds and stray dogs to go for the prize of these colored pieces.” This idea of recycling has morphed from utilizing discarded carpet scraps to intentionally using fragments of carpets to create his famous tapestries today. While self-taught, Collins has proved to be a master of his craft. The quality and caliber of his work is second to none and has garnered universal respect. His status however, did not come into fruition overnight. Recalling his early days, Collins notes the time where he sold his car, a 1958 Porsche, during his freshman year in college in order to purchase the remaining supply of carpet scraps from a closing store. Although teased by his friends, Keith stuck to the decision that would eventually fuel his career. Mark Steven Greenfield A Survey, 2001-2021 Mark Steven Greenfield is a native Angeleno. Born into a military family, he spent his early years in Taiwan and Germany, returning to Los Angeles at the age of 10. Entering into an American adolescence after being abroad gave Greenfield a unique look at the negative stereotyping of African Americans like himself, sparking his interest in the complexities of the Black experience both historically and in contemporary society. Greenfield’s creative process is based on research that delves into topics of Black genealogy, heritage, and cultural representation. His artwork is anchored in aspects of Black history that have been buried, forgotten, or omitted. Mark Steven Greenfield studied at what is now the Otis College of Art and Design and went on to receive a Bachelor’s degree in Education from California State University, Long Beach in 1973. To support his artistic practice, he held various positions as a visual display artist, park director, graphic design instructor, and police sketch artist before returning to school to earn his Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from California State University, Los Angeles in 1987. Since then, Greenfield has been a significant figure in the Los Angeles arts scene, serving as arts administrator for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, director of the Watts Towers Arts Center and the Towers of Simon Rodia, director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, and as a board member for the Downtown Arts Development Association, the Korean Museum, and The Armory Center for the Arts — to name a few. Greenfield has been teaching painting and design courses at Los Angeles City College since 1997. Paul Stephen Benjamin Oh Say “If the color black had a sound, what would it be?” This is one of many questions that conceptual artist Paul Stephen Benjamin explores in his multidisciplinary art practice. Through sights, sounds, and material, Benjamin explores the color black as a way to introduce and discuss different social perspectives. While visually understated, his work serves as an introduction to a broader and multifaceted conversation about race and identity. Benjamin states, “I work hard to make sure my work is not in your face,” noting that this aesthetic subtlety lends itself to a more critical and analytical approach to viewing his work. Oh Say (Remix) is a video installation that presents a compilation of various African American artists and their performances of The Star-Spangled Banner Featured artists include Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, and Beyoncé, with performances that range from music festivals to sporting events. The performers are arranged in conjunction with imagery of the American flag and the faces of American presidents. The work blends past and present histories, bringing these timelines into the context of today. Oh Say (Remix) examines the complexities and nuances of racial identity in America, allowing Paul Stephen Benjamin’s depiction of blackness to present itself introspectively. There is a visual and sonic power that is carried throughout the duration of Oh Say (Remix) . Each scene is dense with visual information, rendered in black and white. The auditory factor of the work grounds its narrative through the repetition and rhythmic pacing of each audio track. Each track builds and builds until it creates a haunting symphony of sound. These elements act as a compression of time and space, allowing multiple histories to speak simultaneously. Sergio Hernandez Chicano Time Capsule, Nelli Quitoani For forty years, the late Chicano artist and cartoonist Sergio Hernandez has echoed important cultural topics and socio-political issues of the Chicano community. Early on, Hernandez began working for Con Safos Magazine , the first Chicano literary magazine. Upon being recruited by Con Safos member and artist Tony Gomez, Hernandez began to align his practice with themes related to the emerging Chicano Movement or “El Movimiento”. The Chicano Movement was and still is geared toward advocating for “social and political empowerment through “chicanismo”, the idea of taking pride in one’s Mexican-American heritage, or cultural nationalism.” Across painting, cartoons, and murals, Hernandez satires socio-political happenings and provides an intimate perspective of the Chicano community. Influenced by Chicano culture, iconography, and artists alike, Hernandez’s work became a beacon calling for action and attention to the harsh realities faced by the Chicano community. The artworks in this exhibition are a small yet compelling collection of Hernandez’s contribution to the Chicano art and power movements. The panel of comic strips on display belong to the Arnie and Porfi comic series. Struggling with the duality of his identity as a Mexican- American, Hernandez often battled with his internal desire to adhere to conservative family-views and his newly found chicanismo. Hernandez expressed this conflict through satire and comedic relief through the Arnie and Porfi comics, visualizing the dystopian world. In other words, through art and humor Hernandez exposes the political oddities and disproportionate disparity experienced by Mexican- Americans. Sergio Hernandez (1948-2021) was born and raised in Los Angeles, California in the South Central area known as the Florence/Firestone District. He received his Bachelor Degree in Chicano Studies from San Fernando Valley State College, which is now known as the California State University, Northridge. Previous Next