It’s a Sign of the Times – the Art of Scott Froschauer

Posted on by Diversions LA

Scott Froschauer makes signs. But unlike a standard business or road sign, his are art – often meditative, always insightful. According to the artist, “The signs are an intersection of two ideas for me. One is the street art that I’ve been doing for years. The main idea behind that has always been to offset the alienating messages of advertising, and to place constructive and positive messages in our culture where there is a vacuum. The other idea comes from the large-scale public art that I create. Making large public art sculptures requires navigating a lot of bureaucracy.”

Froschauer explains that “If I wanted to put a sculpture of a giant duck in Griffith Park it would take a lot of time and money to make the duck, but it could take much more time and money to get the necessary approvals and engineering to satisfy the red tape involved. The street signs I create are fabricated and installed to Department of Transportation specifications.” In short, the city has already approved the engineering of these types of signs. “Every city already has ‘Stop’ signs in it, so they have a template for how to approve them,” he notes. “I’m hijacking that approval process to streamline the costs and timelines for the installation of my work.”


New this year, Froschauer has added neon work to his repertoire, a large amount of credit for which he gives to his gallerist, Wallspace Gallery’s Valda Lake. The large-scale works dazzle the median of Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, directing viewers to “One Love” and “Relax, UROK.”

“She found the opportunity and we presented the idea together to the City of West Hollywood,” he reports. “She had experience with fabricating neon through an amazing shop named SignographUSA, run by Terry Abrahamian. I have extensive experience in navigating the public art application process, and together we worked with the city to get those pieces in. I am so excited for that installation. I think it has to be the highest visibility work I’ve ever done. More people see those pieces every day than I can even imagine.”


Froschauer also has a large new work in the work-out room of the main student building at University of California, Irvine in Orange County. Resembling a massive green and white freeway sign, the 22-foot-long piece reads “All We Have Is – Now, All We Ever Had Is – Now.”

 “I’ve had that design for a while and done it in several sizes. It’s actually the design of my business card. The words come from a Flaming Lips song. The first time I used those words was on a little card I made for Burning Man years ago. When I met someone new – which happens constantly at Burning Man, if we had a great conversation – which often happens at Burning Man, I would memorialize the meeting by handing the new friend a little card with those words on it. I continued to carry the cards around with me even after Burning Man was over, and I would give them out to people for different reasons. I think of the sign as one of those highway signs that tells you how far it is to a particular city. The name of the piece is ‘How Far to Now?’”


Also new for Froschauer: NFTS, which he terms “complex. I decided to get into them because I like understanding different ideas and I like experimenting with different art forms. One of the elements of my The Word on The Street series of street signs is that I create them in a wide range of formats in a wide range of price points. The huge neon pieces, or the installation at UC Irvine are all pretty expensive and out of reach for most people. Even the [regular] full-scale signs can be a stretch. But I also take the ideas and produce them as smaller signs, which are much more affordable and really a better scale for having in someone’s home.”

These pieces are available as pins, necklaces, shirts and stickers. “I’ve always seen the work as an idea that can be represented in a wide range of mediums. NFTs are an extension of that philosophy. I currently see my NFTs the way I see my stickers and they are priced accordingly. I’m still learning what the art form of NFTs is. It’s something new, not necessarily like anything we’ve seen before. It will evolve,” he says.

Froschauer offers an explanation of the burgeoning phenomena that makes far more sense of the form than any commonly given. “The way I explain it to my artist friends who are trying to figure it out, is that for many of us, it’s like when the first cameras came out. An artist might take the new technology and take a photograph of a painting, because that was something they knew was ‘good art.’ But photography is an art form of its own, and it took time for that to emerge. Right now, I think a lot of NFTs (maybe even my own) are just photographs of paintings. I learn more every day.”


Despite the new technology for Froschauer, from neon to NFTs, the pandemic itself has not made a large impact in the type of work he creates as an artist. “One thing I get from people a lot is that my work is so timely. Things like ‘We really need this, especially now.’ I think that was reinforced by the pandemic. But, to me, we’ve always needed it. I started doing this work a while ago and it was really about my own growth. It was about messages that I needed to hear,” he asserts. “The pandemic certainly gave us all opportunities to dig a little deeper, so that was positive for my work, and there were certainly some public art opportunities that came up because of the move to outdoor events.”

And speaking of outdoor events, he also exhibited in the outdoor High Beams show in the parking lot adjoining the Bendix Building in DTLA. The exhibition contained the work of a number of art collectives and gallery spaces; he showed with 515 Bendix, invited by Chelsea Boxwell. The walk-through/drive-through event was, he notes “a great forum for my street signs. I love getting my art out any way I can and I love working with other artists. I’ll be taking any opportunities I get for those kinds of shows. There’s currently a street art show under the connector from the 5 South to the 110 that is an amazing collection of artists. I was proud to be invited to join them for that.” That exhibition, which has not seen official promotion, Froschauer is happy to offer further details about to those interested in viewing.

Inspired by the art and philosophy of others, and “by the countless people I see doing the work to educate the world about the complex hold our culture has on us,” Froschauer has a wide variety of work in the pipeline and applies to calls for art on an on-going basis. “I try and say yes to everything that comes my way,” he says.

And one of the things he always says yes to is the idea of gifting which is another outgrowth of his experience at Burning Man, which he has attended since 2004. “The idea is that everything is Gifted. When you barter there is an expectation of a return, but when you Gift there’s no expectation of a return, you just give and enjoy the process of giving…I always carry around things to gift, stickers, little cards anything that I think might bring some joy to someone. It’s funny when someone demands to pay me for gifting them something, they don’t realize that what I’m getting from the gifting process is better than the money.”

And one of the artist’s gifts that keep on giving are his signs – just right for these and all times.

  • Genie Davis; most images provided by Scott Froschauer; West Hollywood Neon shots, Darren Stone

Sanctuary of the Aftermath – A Dazzling Exhibition of Land, Sea, and Spirit

Posted on by Diversions LA

Now through June 12th, both virtually and in person by appointment, Sanctuary of the Aftermath at Angel’s Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro brings viewers to the ocean, the earth, and heavenward. It’s a beautiful exhibition featuring the work of ten visual and one audio artist: David Hollen, Ibuki Kuramochi, Jason Jenn, Rosalyn Myles, Vojislav Radovanovic, Allison Ragguette, Kayla Tange, Nica Aquino, Jeff Frost Anita Getzler, and an audio work by Joseph Carrillo.

Color palettes are muted, natural materials are featured, and motion-filled images predominate – whether a mutable, participatory Zen garden, an astoundingly lovely video, or the dream-like sense of floating induced by audio soundscape. Within that motion is a sense of connection – between earth, ocean, heaven; between humans and the environment; between the living and the dead. It powerfully evokes the senes of connectedness long missing during the preceding year, and as the title implies, what sanctuary and relief we are now able to find. Art itself seems key to provide both.

Raguette’s large scale sculptural wall art, “Cross Section Eclipse” is glorious and eerie, a magical view of an underwater kingdom, a fragile yet fierce connected ecosystem.

Tange’s interactive Zen garden and woven “The Rise and Fall of Decadence” have an equally sea-centric appearance, meditative and peaceful, with the woven work reminiscent of fishermen’s nets.

It is an island of family that forms Aquino’s “A 2020 Reflection,” shaped from a window of video, flickering LED candles, flowers, and fruit – all creating a personal altar of healing, but one that seems rooted in the culture of an island home.

Hollen’s “Indra’s Net” reminds the viewer of sea-grass or driftwood, revealing the viewer examining the work, the reflective glass balls placed within the piece add to the sense of finding a cluster of objects washed up from the sea.

Partially hidden behind blackened branches from a recent wildfire, a speaker plays Carrillo’s hypnotic auditory composition. As the music trembles, rises, and falls, the listener is reminded of the tidal pulse of the sea and the rush of a flaring fire; it seems to speak of the transitory nature of time, change, and life itself.

Fully rooted in the earth but offering an almost hallucinogenic and soaring vision is the large screen video that pulls viewers into the gallery space behind it. Jeff Frost’s “Circle of Abstract Ritual,” takes viewers on a journey through 300,000 still photos which shift and spin through a 12-minute work that leads from the Slabs beyond the Salton Sea and desert ruins to the city and back again.

The works unfolding beyond the film include pieces by curators Radovanovic and Jenn. Radovanovic’s “Descent of the Holy Spirit,” takes us from our own temporal realm to heaven, with a ladder serving as a sense of passage from the heap of Angel’s Gate park soil in which it is rooted past glittering stars hung on the gallery wall, and up a ladder past rungs tied with jewel-like glass jars bearing flames on a transcendent journey.

Likewise site-specific is Jenn’s “Angel’s Gate Leaf Mandala” which uses dried leaves plucked from the grounds of Angel’s Gate Park to form a meticulous, spiritual spiral transformed by the use of gold and copper leaf and a sparkling royal purple.

Myles’ “Pieces of Us,” rejoices in an abundance of harvest with careful compositional placement of collecting baskets and dried peas. But above these hang ghostly, lacy shapes that that recall the passing of those who gathered past harvests.

Getzler’s work ties land and sea, the living and the dead, with a series of works, “Evocation 1, 2, and 3.”

Dried rose petals are kept in bottles, stored in a drawer, and the central focus of a video elegy filmed by Radovanovic and Jenn.

In the video work, filmed with the glow of Magic Hour sunset around her, the artist honors the dead by tossing handfuls of petals into the ocean, as the Jewish prayer for the dead is performed on the soundtrack.

Kuramochi’s “The Memory of Physicality” (above) links viewers fully back to the vicissitudes and the tenuousness of life with a galvanizing video work essentially framed by rivulets and drifts of human hair that speak to loss and growth and an essential, soul-healing shearing.

Speaking to both the spirit and the strength of sea, earth, and human survival, of this life and the afterlife, Sanctuary of the Aftermath is an exceptional show, one that dances with passion while remarkably exuding a sense of welcoming peace. Don’t miss.

Ann Weber, above

And while you’re at Angel’s Gate, definitely take in the exhibition of studio artists’ work, re-adaptations, which also explores connection, reinvention, and relationship. Exhibiting in this lovely show, in a variety of mediums, are Phoebe Barnum, Delora Bertsch, Lynn Doran, Beth Elliott, Henry Krusoe, Vanessa Madrid, Tim Maxeiner, W.S. Milner, Lowell Nickel, Michelle Seo, Nancy Voegeli-Curran, and Ann Weber.

The exhibition is located at Angels Gate Cultural Center,
3601 S Gaffey St, San Pedro.

  • Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis

Brendan Lott Examines Beauty in Isolation

Posted on by Diversions LA

Stating the obvious, the pandemic changed many things for many people in the last year and a half. Los Angeles-based artist Brendan Lott is among them, with a photographic series that is both intimate and reserved, expressing the innate human condition: we are not solitary creatures by nature, even when circumstances keep us isolated. Beautiful, and edgily poised on voyeuristic moments, Lott’s series Safer at Home is instantly compelling to view.

I saw it for the first time on Instagram, and could not look away.

Lott explains his subjects and purpose. “My work for the past year has consisted of photographing people in their apartments from my window across the street…There’s a rigidly formal quality to the images too, which has often been a part of my work. In the past, I’ve used found images, so technically this is different, but there’s a certain ‘found’ quality to these.” He adds “They are completely candid, so I feel like I am finding these moments, rather than creating them. I think the narrative quality to these is quite different than much of my past work.”

The story Lott tells is poetic and poignant, and started, he says, almost without any planning.

According to the artist, “The series began organically. I spent a lot of time at home looking out my window at the start of the pandemic. I begin to notice all the activity happening just across the street. I had never paid attention before. The lives happening over there. I was always too busy. So I started to pay attention and shoot.”

Lott’s keen observational eye lent itself to a precise artistic approach. “Over time I worked out the technical and formal issues involved to get [the series] where it is now. I want there to be a kind of intimacy, but also something forbidden. We’re not supposed to look, even though we can’t help it.”

That sense of stepping into another’s world, and the potential to capture personal moments, together form a deep connection with those who view these works – even if we have no idea who these people are.

“I want these to be universal and not about the specific person or people in the image. That’s why the faces are cut off or blocked,” he says. 

The image above is one of his favorites, one which Lott believes “really defined the series. The body language. Its languid. Almost sensual. The figure is small and confined in this much larger, brutalist space. It’s technically in color, but it’s essentially black and white and gray.” 

Lott explains that he wants his all work to arise “directly out of who I am and what’s happening at the moment. This series in particular relates to my health issues, my desire to stay inside during the past year because of the pandemic, my desire to look but not be seen.”

The aesthetic behind the images seems to fit neatly with our necessary pandemic masking up – we are observing yet hidden, we are partially obscured, yet still vulnerable and emotionally exposed.

Lott works in a wide range of mediums, but photography is certainly an important one to him. “Photography was my first medium, going all the way back to my teens. It will always be a part of my practice in one way or another. I’m especially excited about the camera right now and what it can do. But I’m always painting and making other things.”

Lott is represented by Walter Maciel Gallery in Los Angeles, but coming up in September, he will have several of these pieces at the USC Fischer Museum in an exhibition tentatively titled Light At The End Of The Tunnel; Art In The Time Of Pandemic, curated by Edward Goldman.

The artist says these images “feel like a book.” With that in mind, he’s on the hunt for a good publisher. The involving nature of the works certainly lends itself to such a collection, and potentially even in other directions – one can easily see them as the instigating force for short works of fiction, and a whole new take on the idea of a graphic novel.

“There’s an organic narrative that happens when these images are sequential,” Lott asserts. “The series is ongoing and I have no intention of stopping.”

Additionally, he would like to show these works in other cities. “There isn’t anything iconically Los Angeles about them, so I’d be interested for them to be seen in another context.”

No matter where they are seen, their power is as universal as it is personal. We are shown Lott’s own view of confinement, as well as that of his subjects, and are rewarded with a full panoply of human emotion, as well as with an almost spiritual connection with his subjects. These are images that will strike any eye, and bring what we see and what we show the world in some of our most personal moments alone into a sharp and beautiful focus.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by the artist

Gloriane Harris Colors Her – and Our – World

Posted on by Diversions LA

Working in primarily vibrant hues, Gloriane Harris has created a large repertoire over the last 50 years, working in both oil and watercolor. She’s created dizzying, vivid geometric abstracts, lush nature abstracts, and more figurative elements within the context of nature throughout the years, from feline to fossil.

No matter what the specific work, Harris dazzles with her palette, her form, and her powerful, dream-like vision. An exhibition of her work is now at BG Gallery in Santa Monica presented through the Venice Institute of Contemporary Art (VICA). 50 Years of Oil & Water – Gloriane Harris – 1969-2020 originally opened at ViCA in DTLA in 2020 but closed due to COVID-19.

Whether she is depicting a volcano, as above in “Edge of Kilauea” (1994), a delicate lavender fossil, or the sheen of smooth sea water, she creates a mesmeric pull with color and motion-filled, compelling images. Her geometric abstracts are hard-edged, sharp and witty; her softer, more flowing images have the texture of silk garments, the shape of petals, waves, hazy landscapes, and summer dawns.

Harris is a quintessentially California artist, both in terms of subjects and her approach. Unlike other artists who began their work in the late 60s and early 1970s, Harris took no part in an exodus to New York, choosing to paint under the radar in West Los Angeles. Working long-term in a SoCal-infused palette, she shaped light-filled, layered color-intense work that ranges in from neon and shades hot as an LA winter sunset to those as cool as a misty morning rainbow over Catalina.

Born in 1947 in Santa Monica, Harris is highly influenced by the season, the light, and the environment around her, saying “the light of the ocean and the beach in Southern California is like nothing anywhere else,” and terming that light the greatest influence on her painting.

Hers is the dazzle of sunlight on sea water, a sunrise barely rimming over the Santa Monica Mountains, an afternoon awash in the golden fire of a summer garden, the blue, golden-hour shadows of a summer dusk. Whether working in highly specific blocks, lines and circles as precise as targets, or creating her flowing abstracts, she shapes the life-force and raw beauty of her west coast home and inspiration. Neither tropical nor desert dry, her art longs for and celebrates water and light.

“Early Season Island” is blue and green and all angular perspective, like paradise viewed from sea, at a horizon-defying distance (2019); the work is somewhat of a fusion between her more impressionistic abstracts and the sharply focused patterned work in the artists’ career.

“Next Eclipse of Green” (1974), is cat’s eye and off-center target in extreme close-up; “Mutchka” (1969) is figurative and bold, a distinctive cat face textured behind a screen or grid (below).

Below, “Earthquake” (1974) is a play on measurement of seismic activity, depicting a circular, moving vibration measured in green, gold, pink and lavender.

The motion of lavenders and reds in “Dusk Dusk” (1974), below, is an abstract of soft-focus lines that contains elements of both harder-edged work and her watercolor abstracts of more recent years. It is both reflection of twilight on water, sky, and fading light on land.

Even in her less-frequent use of black and white, the viewer senses the resonance of Harris’ color-filled images.

Harris studied at Otis Art Institute, and worked with Nam June Paik and Charlotte Moorman on the first artists’ worldwide satellite broadcast at Documenta 6 in Kassel, Germany in 1977. Her work has shown at a wide range of museums and galleries in the U.S. and abroad, from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, to the Palais de Beaux Arts in Belgium, and the Fahle Gallery in Estonia.

While Harris continues to paint daily, and taught at schools such as Otis Art Institute, El Camino College, and Cerritos College, she withdrew from the “art scene” in the late 80s, remerging now with ViCA, in a swirl of rich work, jeweled in glowing colors and shimmering with light. Exemplifying and amplifying the natural world has always been what Harris revels in; through her body of work, viewers join the celebration, California-style.

Genie Davis; photos provided by ViCA