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The Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden’s sculpture exhibition, Earth Dreams: Beyond the Sculptural Landscape, opens during “Grow! A Garden Festival” from May 4-6th, 2012.

Take a journey through the contemporary art exhibition Earth Dreams: Beyond the Sculptural Landscape. This presentation highlights the work of seven local sculptors and installation artists whose artwork transforms the landscape of the LA County Arboretum & Botanic Garden’s Celebration Garden Entryway, Weaver's Garden, Aloe Trail, and Madagascar Spiny Forest. Featuring works by James Hill, Susan Elizalde, Fred Rose, Patrick E., Diana Markessinis, Bill Fillmore, and Pamela Burgess, the exhibit aims to address our planet’s tremendous environmental changes and challenges as well as hopes and dreams for a sustainable and hospitable future for the human race. The artworks, made from recycled and natural materials such as clay, glass, steel, stone, and wood, reference the contrasts between our universal aspirations for an environmentally stable earth and the realities of a warming planet with limited natural resources.

Diana Markessinis, "Untitled" (tree installation), Plumbing pipes & cardboard, 14' x 10' x 6'

Watch below as sculptor James Hill creates dynamic, polished metal artworks that poetically question life’s permanency while precisely revealing its beauty. Susan Elizalde casts clay Cycladic figures that revere the human form. Fred Rose carves solid Eucalyptus logs and bamboo from Arboretum trees into boat shapes and organic grids that reference the surrounding plants and botanical history. Installation artist Patrick E. adeptly fuses steel and glass to echo nature’s forms and functions, some while integrating solar technology. Artist Diana Markessinis ingeniously reconfigures found objects, such as plumbing pipes, to create stunning tree and root system sculptures that examine technology’s connection to human life. Bill Fillmore’s Post-Industrial Harmony series reflects the Eastern philosophy of renewal and the cyclic nature of life by combining brut metals with re-purposed and man-made objects made of plastic and glass to produce new functional objects of beauty. Installation artist Pam Burgess manipulates natural light by engineering layered light weaves or tulles to re-define the environment through shadows, reflections, and color.