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

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

Up A print collection Nuri Amanatullah Nuri Amanatullah is an Antelope Valley-based painter, illustrator, and designer whose stylized, graphic depictions of flora and fauna are represented in a variety of mediums including illustration and large-scale murals. Employing both traditional techniques and digital media, Amanatullah has designed for Disney, storyboarded for Uber, illustrated for Airbnb, and painted walls at numerous sites around the Antelope Valley including a mural with Antelope Valley Walls in 2018, as well as in Flint, Michigan as part of the Free City Mural Festival. He has also lent his talents to the non-profit Housing Corporation of America for the past three years helping to jump-start and brand a wide variety of art programs at affordable income housing properties. Illustrating animals and plants in a colorfully bold and vibrant style, Amanatullah subverts the idea of the desert as a barren and desolate setting by exploring the intersection of our everyday lives and the natural world. These brief, chance encounters with wildlife take place in the “vacant” spaces between housing and commercial developments, highlighting our own place amongst nature--often at odds with it, and far separated from our surroundings. February 2019 - May 2021 Back to list

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

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

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

Up Green Revolution Various Artists 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. February 13 - April 17, 2016 Back to list

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

Up The Light of Space Various Artists Solo exhibitions: Laddie John Dill Jay Mark Johnson Kysa Johnson Shana Mabari Ruth Pastine Mary Anna Pomonis Robert Standish Site specific installations Gary Lang Edwin Vasquez Video installation Jeff Frost New Works by Ruth Pastine The Light of Space - A film by Eric Minh Swenson. "These Photos Bend Time and Space—Literally" MICHAEL HARDY on Jay Mark Johnson for WIRED Laddie John Dill Laddie John Dill is a Los Angeles artist whose work focuses on nature by portraying cycles and moments rather than a singular moment in time using light and space. He achieves this by utilizing materials like glass, cement, and pigment as a metaphor. With influences like Rauschenberg, Keith Sonnier, Robert Smithson, Dennis Openheim, and Robert Irwin, Dill has learned to use the physical space around him as opposed to a stationary canvas on an easel. This practice results in a magnificent scene of candescent light and sand that envelopes the viewer, entering a form of metamorphosed reality. Contained Radiance Lancaster demonstrates his use of space as his canvas and distributes light creating a dreamlike, ethereal quality. His use of light, sand, and hard materials like aluminum 6061 within the surrounding space each work to create a harmonious and tranquil atmosphere, diffusing light and shadow to create a transcendental experience for the viewer. He portrays the light, sky and earth as parts of a whole that cannot function without the other, bearing witness to the oneness of nature and ultimately demonstrating reasons why nature should be protected and respected. Dill was born in Long Beach, California in 1943. He graduated from Chouinard Art Institute in 1968 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. After graduating, Dill became a printing apprentice and worked closely with established artists, like Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jasper Johns. Laddie John Dill’s work is in the permanent collections of national and international institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, California, Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, California, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, California; High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, The Phillips Collection in Washington DC, Chicago Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois, The Smithsonian in Washington DC, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark, Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples, Italy, Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, California, and Museo Jumex in Mexico City, Mexico. He currently lives and works in Venice, California. Jay Mark Johnson Jay Mark Johnson’s unconventional method of timeline photography examines human space and time, broadening established understandings about linear temporal space. He combines the storytelling abilities of a cinematographer with a handmade German scanning device to create an image that effectively melds the ideas of time and space into a single artwork. In his series of work, the subject remains clear while the background appears to be distorted and in a constant stream of motion and colors altering time and space. Instead of standard photography which favors space and stagnation, these images are captured through the rate of movement of the subject. This project began when Johnson tested the effect of a rotating slit-scan camera had when he stopped the rotation and focused on a fixed area. The camera takes photographs of a single moment represented by a single vertical sliver and over time a series of vertical lines are created of the moving subject resulting in a composite series of strips. Depending on the rate of motion of the subject, the object can appear elongated or crushed. The rendering of reality in conjunction of time into space provides powerful interpretations of the way humans move through time and space. Johnson was born in St. Petersburg, Florida and studied architecture at Tulane University in New Orleans and at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York City. He produced more than fifty series of images that have been presented in more than a hundred solo and group exhibitions. The artworks can be found in the permanent collections of the Riechstag building of the German Bundestag in Berlin, Germany, the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe, Germany, the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation in Los Angeles, California, the Phoenix Art Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, the Langen Foundation in Hombroich, Germany, the Peter Klein Museum Kunstwerkin Eberdingen, Germany, the collection of Michael G. Wilson, the Milken Family Foundation in Santa Monica, California, and the Fidelity Corporate Art Collection in Boston, Massachusetts. He currently lives and works in Santa Monica, California. Kysa Johnson Kysa Johnson conceptualizes the microscopic and the macro landscapes of subjects like molecular structures, maps of the universe and diseases transforming them into lively still lifes and landscape paintings. She effectively introduces scientific concepts that would normally be invisible to the naked eye and magnifies its contents, exposing the viewer to the world’s most fundamental parts of our structural universe. Providing meaningful, emotional, and historical relevance, this magnification of the microscopic and macro allows for the viewer to connect to scientific concepts and phenomena providing a newly found appreciation of our reality. Inspired by images gathered from the Hubble telescope and particle accelerators, Faraway, So Close utilizes subatomic particles to portray the cycle of death, rebirth, and transformation from supernovas to the formation of new stars in nebulae. She shows both the fragility and sheer power of these happenings with elegantly placed loops of particle decay to demonstrate the life cycle of these celestial events. The images are made up of hundreds of ink markings contrasted with a stark, black background symbolizing the darkness of space and the universe resulting in a newly realized perspective of life and death. Born in Illinois in 1974, Johnson trained at Glasgow School of Art in Scotland. Johnson has had solo exhibitions at institutions such as The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, Connecticut, The National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, Roebling Hall Gallery in New York City and The Nicolaysen Museum in Casper, Wyoming. She has been featured in a number of group shows including exhibitions at The 2nd Biennial of the Canary Islands, the Tang Museum in Saratoga Springs, New York, The Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, New York, the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, New York, DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts and Standpoint Gallery in London, England. Johnson has created site-specific installations for KK Projects in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2008, Dublin Contemporary in Ireland in 2011 and for the New York Armory Show in 2013. She is a 2003 New York Foundation for the Arts fellow, a 2009 Pollack Krasner Grant recipient and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Shana Mabari Shana Mabari’s work revolves around the use of color, light and geometric forms to relate ideas about visual perception and our surrounding space. Inspired by the Light and Space movement that occurred in the 1960s, she pulls the west coast artistic movement from key figures like Robert Irwin and James Turrell and explores the philosophy of human perception and the highly technical and advanced scientific fields of astrophysics and psychophysics. In Mabari’s series, she records her astronomical observations during the summers of 2018 and 2019 in Ibiza, Spain. Her prints focus on the overlapping views of the same object - the positive and the negative. In this case, the “positive” view would be the object looking up from earth and the “negative” would be the view of the object looking down on earth. She also makes the choice of incorporating aluminum into the drawing to demonstrate aluminum’s historical importance to aerospace and its natural occurrence in space. The prints in Planeta and Stella incorporate mathematical information like right ascension, declination, apparent magnitude, radial velocity, distance from Earth in light years, eccentricity and synodic period into the intricately placed geometric lines and forms demonstrating the inherent beauty and structure in space. Mabari was born in Los Angeles, California. She has traveled extensively, and lived in Paris, Northern India, and Tel Aviv.  Her education includes studies at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris and Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. In 2016, Mabari’s Astral Challenger, a 20-foot-high rocket-shaped sculpture, was installed in the center of a roundabout at the intersection of Challenger Way and Avenue L in Lancaster, California, in honor of the City’s ongoing achievements in the aerospace industry, and in commemoration of the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster. She holds a patent for the design of “Dynamic Spatial Illusions,” a portable version of a visual and sensory experimental environment. She is a recipient of the Center for Cultural Innovation Artists’ Resource for Completion (ARC) grant. Mabari currently works and lives in Los Angeles, California. Mary Anna Pomonis Mary Anna Pomonis’ work functions at the crossroads of mysticism, abstract painting, geometry, and popular culture. She utilizes a multitude of different source materials including quilt squares, sacred geometry, icons, and abstract painting tapping into themes concerning personal power. She channels these ideas with symbols like crests and banners using historically revered artwork to emotionally move the viewer. Mary Anna Pomonis’ new exhibition Iris Oculus, focuses on the eight point star or temple rosette and is a visual celebration of Inanna, the Mesopotamiam goddess of war and sex. Inspired by images seen of Mother Mary and the Greek Orthodox church, Pomonis joins the sacred images of mandorlas and the architecture of churches to celebrate goddesses of antiquity. Utilizing sacred geometry and geometric forms allows the viewer to transcend beyond the physical realm and invokes the mystic nature of the work. In turn, she creates a space of personal strength connecting to both the artwork and the otherworldly. Pomonis is a Los Angeles based artist. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Illinois and her Master of Fine Arts at the Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Her work has been included in exhibitions at galleries and institutions including the Western Carolina University Museum of Fine Arts in Cullowhee, North Carolina, the Torrance Art Museum in Torrance, California, the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum in St Louis, Missouri, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, California, and I-space Gallery in Chicago, Illinois. Her artwork and projects have appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, Artillery Magazine, Art Forum, Frieze, Hyperallergic, National Public Radio, Whitehot Magazine, Yale University Radio and Artweek. Additionally, her curatorial projects and essays have been featured at commercial and institutional galleries, such as the Vincent Price Art Museum in Monterey Park, California, Whittier College Greenleaf Gallery in Whittier, California, PØST in Los Angeles, California, and the Peter Miller Gallery in Chicago, Illinois. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Art Education at California State University Fullerton. Robert Standish For 12 years, Los Angeles painter Robert Standish had been representing his perceptions of the undercurrents of the human condition through photorealistic paintings of people and blurred lights. Seven years ago, Standish shifted away from constructing life-like replicas based solely on his photos to delving deeper into the unconscious unknown and new psychological depths. His choice to explore pure abstraction unlocked an organic spontaneous paint process of his own making, which is evidenced in both his current Rhythmic series and Anti-Sporadic series . With an interest in metaphysics, Standish uses basic elements like line, color and texture, to represent the dynamism, constance and transcendent flow of the universe. Standish’s lusciously colored, abstract paintings appear to be in the tradition of both American Abstract Expressionism and German Expressionist painting. There are no finite borders or endings in his works as every stroke bleeds into one another in an eternal unbroken chain that seems to extend far beyond any conceivable edge of the canvas. The painting’s many layers, strokes and scrapes of color may thus appear as “beautiful” as anything found in nature that came into existence partly according to a predetermined structure (such as DNA), as well as by way of unpredictable occasions of pure chance and the action of outside forces. Standish taps into a universal and organic language as his traces begin to take on the shape of fractal patterns, earth frequencies and topographies and biorhythmic waves. As he once manipulated the real into the un-real, Standish now transforms the natural into the supernatural. Robert Standish graduated from Antioch University in 1996 with a Bachelors of Art in Psychology. His works can be found in the permanent collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, California, The Weisman Foundation in Los Angeles, California, JP Morgan Chase, the Louis K. Meisel Gallery in New York City, Larry and Marilyn Fields, Patricia Arquette, Bryant Stibel, along with numerous acclaimed private collections. His paintings have been exhibited internationally in galleries and museums, with a recent group show at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California in 2019, and is now excited to share his first solo show with us here at The Lancaster Museum of Art and History. He currently works and lives in Los Angeles, California. Gary Lang Gary Lang is a widely-known Western contemporary abstract painter whose work is centered around color theory and the study of time. Recognized for his intense and brightly colored circles, he combines the precision of his brush, hand, paint and canvas to his hypnotic paintings that simultaneously convey an immense amount of sharpness, gradiance and permeability. In Lang’s Glitterworks, he strays from his iconic circles to a playful rendition of color and space. However, these works still continue to explore Lang’s fascination with effervescent colors and visual consciousness. He uses 120 six inch fabric squares from clothing that he wore while working with dabs of different colors, glitter and reflective film placed into square wooden frames, creating a sense of order in the energetic splashes of color. This contrasts sharply with the carefully controlled, concentric circles one witnesses of previous works. The result challenges traditional ideas about formal composition while exploring Lang’s themes of color and space. Gary lang received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the California Institute of Art and his Masters of Fine Arts from Yale University. In 1975, Lang received a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Barcelona where he studied the architecture of Antoni Gaudí. Lang’s work has been shown in more than seventy solo exhibitions in the United States, Austria, France, Japan, The Netherlands and Spain. His work is also featured in permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, California, Los Angeles County Museum of Art in Los Angeles, California, Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine; the Brooklyn Museum of Art in Brooklyn, New York, Contemporary Art Museum, University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida, Detroit Institute of the Arts in Detroit, Michigan, Gemeentemuseum den Haag in The Netherlands, among many others. Gary Lang currently lives and works in Ojai, California. Edwin Vasquez Edwin Vasquez’s work ranges from a multitude of different mediums including photography, digital images, poetry, and mixed-media utilizing art as a vehicle for social commentary about his surrounding environment and human nature. His art expands on his universe and his perspectives on today’s controversial social and political climate tapping into themes about immigration, freedom, and Latinidad. Vasquez’s new body of work combines a logical, mathematical analysis of shapes with digital photographs of space and purposefully deconstructs these images creating a harmonious depiction of the planets and constellations. His art relies on his intense saturation of colors and forms to promote the reactions of the viewer. Vasquez achieves this with the use of fractal geometry, a mathematical approach to describing, measuring, and predicting systems occurring in nature. The installation consists of more than 200 images that Vasquez has manipulated through different software melding various colors and shapes until finding an image that he is satisfied with. The use of fractal shapes, bright colors, abstract shapes, and space function to create structure and pattern inside our tumultuous universe. Vasquez is an artist, photojournalist, published author, and videographer in the Antelope Valley. He has participated in a number of different exhibits including: Refractions, Metro Gallery, Pomona; dA Gallery 16th Annual d’Aztlan: El Movimiento; Hispanic Heritage, Latino Art Museum; Convergence From Pixels to Picote, Colleen Farrell Gallery, Tehachapi; Vasquez has been featured in several group exhibitions including The State Latin American Visual Arts in Rhode Island (where his work was recognized by Governor Lincoln D. Chafee), Communication at Casa 0101 in Los Angeles, Don’t Sleep! at the Latino Art Museum in Pomona, Day of the Dead Installation at the MOAH, and regularly participates in the Museum of Art & History’s Annual All-Media Juried Art Exhibit. He is currently an Artist-in-Residence for #CountMeIn and a Kipaipai Fellow. Jeff Frost Jeff Frost explores time and space through different sub-mediums like painting, photography, video and installation. In combination with short films that traverse themes about creation and destruction. He often works with time-lapse and stop motion to portray notions of science and physics to understand the subtleties of our physical world. This process is achieved by taking photos from several points in time and coupling them into a smooth, chronological flow of spatial events. The use of time-lapse and stop motion is also utilized in the painting of empty, abandoned buildings, capturing a fluid motion of events that appears to have seemingly materialized on their own. In the series, GO HOME , Frost dissects the meaning of “home” through a series of optical illusion paintings in derelict, abandoned structures in southern California. Typically, abandoned locations don’t conjure up feelings associated with the idea of home, Frost challenges the physical representation of home by questioning our emotional alignment with these ideas. “In order to maintain our world view, our emotional alignment must be very precise. One step to the left or right and the illusion breaks.” Frost said. The work examines the physical and ideological notion of what one considers to be a home and explores the frailty of these concepts through the different layers of illusion. Frost was born in Utah and graduated from the University of Eastern Utah in 1998. His work has been shown at his own independent Desert X 2019 parallel installation, Los Angeles Art Association curated by Leslie Jones for LACMA, the Palm Springs Art Museum, the Center for European Nuclear Research (CERN), and LAX. He has been selected for the Nordic LA residency at the ACE Hotel in Palm Springs & the Facebook Artist in Residence program in 2019. He performed a soundart set at the Desert Daze music festival in 2019. He was both a producer and subject of the 2017 Netflix docuseries, Fire Chasers. He has been featured in numerous online publications and TV interviews such as PBS Newshour, TIME Magazine, Artnet, and American Photo. The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) named him one of the best photographers of 2014. U2 and Ladytron have commissioned him for artwork used on tour and in album art. He has spoken at TEDx in Switzerland, the Seattle Art Fair, University of Southern California, Palm Springs Art Museum, Orlando Museum of Art, Snap! Orlando, and photoLA Ruth Pastine Ruth Pastine’s painting practice is an ongoing contemplative and reflective investigation focusing on the austerity of the three complementary color systems which, although seemingly finite, access limitless possibilities. Her paintings evolve in concert with and in juxtaposition to one another furthering the perceptual interaction of color contexts while challenging phenomena of color perception and the relativity of color and light. Working serially, Pastine’s process is informed by the systematic understanding of color developed at the Bauhaus and the 19th Century research of Michel Eugène Chevreul and his discovery of simultaneous contrast. Confronting the unknown is always at the edge of discovery and is the onramp to new work. Pastine’s minimalist color field paintings explore essential tensions that drive her work: presence and absence, surface and depth, materiality and immateriality, the finite and the limitless. She continues to evolve pure abstraction and follow the concepts of Minimalist theory, furthering the phenomenological experience of light and space in her work. Pastine explores the subtle character and nuance of color, color and light are reduced to their most elemental form, working with oil paint on canvas thousands of small brush strokes resolve and appear visually seamless, producing an image that is both objective and dematerialized. Challenging preconceptions about color, her investigations into the manipulation of color, light, and matter question the perceptual experience and redefine the visual field. Born and raised in New York City, Ruth Pastine received her B.F.A. from Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and upon graduating was awarded an independent residency grant to the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She received her M.F.A. from Hunter College of the City University of New York where she focused on painting, color theory and critical studies. In 2009, Pastine began site-specific work with a public commission entitled Limitless, composed of 8 large-scale paintings, installed as two series in the adjoining lobbies of Ernst & Young Plaza, in downtown Los Angeles. In 2014, Ruth Pastine had her first museum survey exhibition titled: Attraction: 1993-2013 at MOAH Lancaster Museum of Art and History, Lancaster, CA with exhibition catalog essays by Donald Kuspit and Peter Frank, with an appreciation by De Wain Valentine. In 2015, she opened Present Tense: Paintings and Works on Paper 2010-2015 at the CAM Carnegie Art Museum, Oxnard, CA. Ruth Pastine’s paintings are included in numerous private and public collections, including the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; SFMOMA San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; MCASD Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles; MOAH Lancaster Museum of Art and History Lancaster; Brookfield Properties, Ernst & Young Plaza, Los Angeles; AXA Art, Cologne, Germany; Qualcomm, San Diego; CIM Group Headquarters, Los Angeles, among others. Ruth Pastine lives and works in Southern California. February 8 - April 19, 2020 Back to list

Up Estate Italiana Various Artists 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. August 26 - October 22, 2017 Back to list

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

Up Imagen Angeleno Various Artists Special Exhibition : Dark Progressivism Artists : Ken Gonzales-Day Linda Vallejo Abel Alejandre Ana Rodriguez In celebration of the Getty Museum’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative, which is a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles, MOAH presents its winter exhibition, Imagen Angeleno . This exhibition will include solo exhibits of work by: Ken Gonzales-Day, Abel Alejandre, Ana Rodriguez and Linda Vallejo. The Main Gallery will feature a special exhibition, Dark Progressivism: The Built Environment , guest-curated by Rodrigo d’Ebre and Lisa Derrick. Inspired by the 2016 documentary film Dark Progressivism , written by Rodrigo d’Ebre and co-directed by Rodrigo d’Ebre and James J. Yi, this exhibition highlights the street and public art movements that characterize Los Angeles’ Southland. Dark Progressivism: The Built Environment answers the question of which movements are shaping 21st century art with a multi-faceted approach that looks to the streets of LA, where innovations in design and the idea of vandalism as a form of artistic resistance are embedded in the city’s identity. Artists featured in Dark Progressivism: The Built Environment include: Michael Alvarez, Sandow Birk, Chaz Bojorquez, Liz Brizzi, Roberto Chavez, Gajin Fujita, Peter Greco, Roberto Gutierrez, Jason Hernandez, Juan Carlos Munoz Hernandez, Louis Jacinto, Susan Logoreci, Manuel Lopez, Eva Malhotra, Horacio Martinez, Jim McHugh, Gerardo Monterrubio, Nunca, Estevan Oriol, Cleon Peterson and Lisa Schulte, Felix Quintana, Carlos Ramirez, Erwin Recinos, Rafael Reyes, Joe ‘Prime’ Reza, Sandy Rodriguez, Shizu Saldamando, Alex Schaefer, Jaime Scholnick & Big Sleeps. Dark Progressivism Curated by Rodrigo Ribera d'Ebre and Lisa Derrick The Dark Progressivism: The Built Environment exhibit is a survey of the region’s Dark Progressivism school of thought, which dates back to the Great Depression, and is brought into current day. Special emphasis is placed on the post-war era through the present. The exhibit sheds light on the organic relationship between photography, painting, literature, architecture, sculpture, cinema, mural, and typography. The creation and production of these works derive from a noir cityscape, in a land where the bright colors of flora and fauna, native and transplanted, belief somber secrets and complex histories. The origin of Dark Progressivism begins with the built environment. As a result of restrictive housing covenants against people of color, clusters of orderly and planned suburbs sprouted all over the metropolis, while high density, marginalized, and underdeveloped communities developed elsewhere, forming a belt around Downtown Los Angeles. Far from tourist destinations, these communities were invisible and associated with slum housing. During the Depression, people of color, born and raised in Los Angeles, were fired from public sector jobs so that “White Americans” could find employment, while thousands of Mexican Americans and Mexican-born immigrants were repatriated to Mexico. At the same time, “socially progressive” housing projects were designed by renowned architects as a form of containment to house low-income Mexican and Mexican American communities. Housing projects such as Maravilla, Rose Hills Courts, Ramona Gardens, Pico Aliso Village, Dogtown, and several others became a reality, and thousands were displaced into the shadows of the projects; thus people of color and these communities became more invisible and further fragmented. On the bleak streets of this built environment, the youth responded by writing graffiti on walls in the form of community plaques, and carving names and neighborhoods in cement to show that they too existed in the dark metropolis. From then, through the changes, whether physical and social, violent or benign, of the ensuing decades, contemporary artists in a variety of mediums have been directly informed by this noir cityscape. Dark Progressivism: The Built Environment deconstructs the metropolis’ trajectory through an unprecedented historical lens, with works from artists who are not only impacted by the opaque topography, but who are also contributing to the dialog of progress. Ken Gonzales-Day Profiled Racial profiling and discriminatory treatment of persons of color remains at the center of political debates about criminal justice, terrorism, national security and immigration reform despite the increasing understanding that race has more to do with culture than biology. Many studies have been made involving the literary and art-historical depictions of race in text and painting, but the sculpted figure and the portrait bust have garnered little attention. Ken Gonzales-Day: Profiled addresses these forms. It became evident in Gonzales-Day’s research that historically sculptures and portrait busts were created using other works of art such as photographs or illustrations as reference. Many sculptures are copies of copies and with each new artist comes a reinterpretation of the previous. This cycle of replication has resulted in the progressive distortion of the subjects’ depiction. In others, the busts were not busts at all, but fragments from larger sculptures composited from various models. Profiled is about more than the uncanny double, it is about the fragmented and fractured subject and its visual potential. Ken Gonzales-Day is a Los Angeles based artist whom received a BFA from Pratt Institute, an MFA from the University of California Irvine, an MA from Hunter College and is now a Professor of Art and Humanities at Scripps College in Claremont, CA. His work has been widely exhibited including: LACMA, Los Angeles; LAXART, Los Angeles; Tamayo Museum, Mexico City; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; The New Museum, New York City; Generali Foundation, Vienna, and more. Ken Gonzales-Day was also awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in photography in 2017. Linda Vallejo The Brown Dot Project Linda Vallejo’s The Brown Dot Project continues her work examining the growing Latino population and American’s changing attitudes towards color and class. The Brown Dot Project began with the artist’s consideration of statistics concerning Latino populations and how abstract painted works could spark a dialog about these numbers and their influence on the viewer’s perception of race and class. The “brown dot” abstract image of these Latino data numbers emerged after much trial and error. Once Vallejo’s work led her to the grid, she began dividing them into quadrants and a pattern began to manifest. Vallejo continued the project’s production by experimenting with formal variations based on Latino percentages and her experiences with indigenous weaving. The first images she produced recalled American Indian and Mesoamerican blankets, weavings and ancient ceremonial sites. Later, Mondrian, Chuck Close, Agnes Martin, Charles Gaines, and other grid-oriented modernists came to mind as she was forced to create new variations within the work. Vallejo studies a variety of data sets, including topics such as the number of Latinos in any given city or state, the national number of Latino executives, the number of Latinos involved in the American Civil War. As an example: The population of Los Angeles County is represented by 48,400 total squares. The county’s Latino population (48.3%) is represented by 23,377 dots arranged in 467 sets of 50 dots each (and one set of 27 additional dots). As her dates sets expand, so too have the works, growing in size from 9 square inches to 24 square inches, the largest of which are 36 square inches. Counting of these squares and dots, completing the corresponding mathematics, and “dotting” the page takes hours of concentration on both topic and execution. Abel Alejandre Urban Realism Abel Alejandre spent the first seven years of his life in the rural region of Tierra Caliente, Mexico. In these early years, Alejandre and his family lived without electricity and running water. They emigrated to Los Angeles in 1975, which Alejandre describes as being akin to traveling a century into the future. Looking back to this transformative period, Alejandre aims to examine and reinterpret what it means to be a human being, a man and the member of a community. These themes are explored in his work as his subject matter focuses on discounted and overlooked moments that subversively yet actively shape our culture. By isolating these instances into hyperrealist vignettes Alejandre intends to stimulate the onlookers’ reflection. The autobiographical elements of Alejandre’s work delve into the public and private spheres of masculinity and vulnerability. He frequently uses roosters to symbolize machismo, manhood, valor and patriarchy as they are animals known for their fierce instinct, beauty and determination to fight until its enemy is completely dispatched. Through his work Alejandre evaluates and questions the role of masculinity’s in contemporary society. For over twenty years Abel Alejandre has been perfecting his practice in acrylics, woodblock prints and graphite. Alejandre’s graphite drawings makes up the largest body of work and require upwards of five months to bring to fruition, averaging eleven hours per day and consumes about 700 pencils each. Ana Rodriguez Floral Interiors Ana Rodriguez’ canvases—with their feminine color palettes of pinks and purples and dripping textures that are reminiscent of frosting or cake batter—are at once mysterious, feminine and deeply personal. The artist grew up in the small community of Maywood, California, neighbor to the numerous chemical plants, refineries, public waste areas and foundries of Commerce and Vernon. As a child, Rodriguez recalls being highly aware of how the rancid smells of these factories mixed with the sweet scents of small bakeries and cake shops in her city. Memories of this olfactory sensation are pervasive throughout her current body of work. Rodriguez’ paintings also often incorporate references to the 99 Cent Store decorations that adorned her childhood home, providing a link to her family’s social class in an attempt to acquire a deeper understanding of the nature of classifying beauty and objects of value. Patterns reminiscent of kitchen cabinet liners, linoleum flooring, wallpaper and fabric from childhood toys and clothes emerge from beneath dripping washes of color in an amalgam of neon and pastel hues and abstract forms that seem to melt and ooze in and out of gravity. Allusions to the natural environment are also present in the artist’s color palette: splashes of pink mix with orange and gold, evoking the striking appearance of East Los Angeles’ sunsets, melting over the smokestacks of factories and the rooftops of crowded apartment complexes. Nostalgia and memory, fantasy and whimsy collide, mingle and overwhelm as abstraction and pattern coexist across Rodriguez’ paintings. Ana Rodriguez earned a BFA from California State University Long Beach and an MFA from Otis College of Art and Design, where she currently teaches. November 11, 2017 - January 14, 2018 Back to list