Clothesline Lanes
August 7, 2014 - April 15, 2015
Leigh Salgado is a leading proponent and practitioner of Sculpted Drawing, a technique that combines painting, cutting, and burning within a single artwork. Her labor-intensive, abstract images are meticulously composed so that they appear to be crocheted or hand-woven as they morph into recognizable forms such as netting, lace, and clothing. Her unique technique employs the Exacto knife and burning tool, which she uses to eviscerate the negative space between the lines in her acrylic drawings. The resulting texture and shadows highlight the three dimensionality of her work.
Clothesline Lanes is a series of ten site-specific artworks for the Los Angeles International Airport, Tom Bradley Terminal. This solo presentation of Leigh Salgado’s sculpted drawings is an exhibition that references Los Angeles’ geographic dichotomy, which is both familiar and simultaneously secret, intimate yet universally appealing.
Southern California has diverse neighborhoods that offer a visual treat and rouse the senses. Some of these places are popular with tourists while others seem to be only known by locals. Salgado’s interest in women’s clothing, fabric, patterns, and memories take her to locations of intriguing beauty and fascination. For Clothesline Lanes she chose to focus on five locations that reflect parts of the Southern California experience, ones which we may all see but do not necessarily experience. Each of the artworks is influenced by unique women’s clothing items: bathing suits of Pacific Coast Highway, couture fashion of Rodeo Drive, Quinceañera dresses of Pacific Boulevard in Huntington Park, the thrift stores of Fairfax Boulevard’s Little Ethiopia, and the saris of Pioneer Boulevard in Little India.
Selected Publications:
LADCA at LAX Clothesline Lanes by Leigh Salgado install
LADCA at LAX Clothesline Lanes by Leigh Salgado album
LADCA at LAX Clothesline Lanes by Leigh Salgado Walking on Air
Rantings & Shavings
May 3 - August 4, 2013
Susan Sironi is recognized for carving a series of the same book to reveal multiple concepts, perceptions, and interpretations of the experience. Sironi’s process is meticulous and explores repurposing all aspects of the book including cuttings and dust.
Sironi’s solo exhibition Rantings & Shavings is an examination of reality mixed with what is imagined and will be on exhibition at the Fullerton Public Library from May 3 - August 4, 2013. This presentation features both individually altered books as well as multiple book series, including the Alice in Wonderland and Gulliver’s Travels series cut to mimic Sironi’s body parts and the East West series cut to reveal different concepts of Eastern and Western cultures. A cookbook and masonic code book are among the many deconstructions which have been reconfigured to provoke innovative thoughts and ideas.
Elemental
February 1 – April 28, 2013
Brian Dettmer is known for his detailed and innovative sculptures with books and other forms of threatened media. His work gained international acclaim through internet bloggers and traditional media.
Dettmer’s most recent body of work Brian Dettmer: Elemental explores iconic forms and symbols from his early childhood education. Technology can often render history and raw materials as obsolete and Dettmer expands this perspective by reformatting for the future. Thesauruses, state flags, encyclopedia sets, and paperback books have been deconstructed by significance and function, and then restructured to communicate a uniquely modern and well preserved vocabulary of art. This exhibition travels from the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia to the Fullerton Public Library and will conclude at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art.
The Fullerton Public Library’s presentation of *Elemental Selections features the full exhibition catalog Brian Dettmer: Elemental.
Selected Publications:
Fullerton Foundry Brian Dettmer Exhibit at Fullerton Public Library
Fullerton Public Library Elemental Selections by Brian Dettmer
More Images or Image Slideshow
Forces of Nature
November 30 – December 2, 2012
Future generations of LA County Arboretum & Botanic Garden visitors will be pleased to hear the trees lost in the storm of December 2011 will be replaced as a result of Forces of Nature. This exhibition and auction feat has given new meaning and depth to the term recycling. Leigh Adams organized resources including County crews, private contractors, and countless volunteers to clean up, separate, and spare 1,200 precious hardwoods from destruction. Arboretum staff and employees worked together to label, transport, divide, and distribute vast quantities of rare hardwoods to 100 participating artists who contemplated their own way to transform a lost tree into found beauty. Cream Gallery organized the exhibition and auction and proceeds from the auction were used to purchase new trees.
The National Association of Counties (NACO) granted Los Angeles County a 2013 Achievement Award for its program titled Forces of Nature in the category of Arts and Historic Preservation. Due to its exceptional results and unique innovations, the program was chosen to receive the honor of Best of Category.
Selected Publications:
KPCC’s Los Angeles County Arboretum displays art from windstorm debris
NPR’s Lemons out of lemonade, art out of trees: Forces of Nature at the LA Arboretum
LA Times’ L.A. arboretum turns wind-toppled trees into artistic windfall
Earth Dreams: Beyond the Sculptural Landscape
May 4 - June 10, 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, William 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.
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.
Evolution of the Modern Age
Shad Nowicki's paintings are inspired by popular culture and American history, particularly iconic images of Hollywood. From a distance, they may appear to depict simplistic subjects. Upon close inspection, however, a myriad of television characters and images from contemporary society are revealed. His use of unusual and unexpected surfaces and materials enhances the imagery and style of his work.
Nowicki's most recent paintings explore and question the evolution of modern American development. His themes of entertainment, invention and innovation, politics, and contemporary corporate culture were all created on disassembled pizza boxes that Nowicki recombines to create "canvases."
Domestic Bodhi
Outlaw
Et tu, Aegyptopithecus
K.L. Sully
David Summerson