Artist Edwin Vasquez Creates a Vibrant Passion Project About the Endangered Joshua Tree

Posted on by Diversions LA

A powerful installation by Edwin Vasquez now at Angels Gate Cultural Center marks the fulfilment of a grant received by the artist. As a part of the Seven Visions X Seven Artists exhibition, Vasquez offer a compelling work created through the MRH Fund for Artists program, which supports artists to expand their creative reach.

The work at Angels Gate is part of the artist’s multidisciplinary series expressing the rich significance of the Joshua Tree, otherwise known as the Yucca brevifolia. Vasquez’s realization of the massive undertaking he calls The Joshua Tree Chronicles grew from an initial written account to one that includes a widerange of visual art including multimedia.

His work combines photography, mixed media, recycled material, digital art, images generated through AI, video, and poetry. His purpose is to reveal the tree itself in an accessible way that also allows viewers to experience it with fresh eyes and become more aware of the variety of problems facing the tree in the Antelope Valley.

Calling the Joshua Tree “an iconic symbol of endurance,” Vasquez informs his work for this project with the tree’s unique profile, revealing its strength despite the harsh desert environment in which it grows. Having successfully survived in that environment now its resilience is challenged due to climate change, loss of habitat due to increased human encroachment, and wildfires, all of which threaten its survival and reflect the larger ecological crisis facing us today.

Connecting the Joshua Tree with human experience is one of Vasquez signature themes in this project, revealing both its graceful beauty and extreme vulnerability in his diverse works. While some images emphasize the interconnectedness between the tree and humans, others present potential futures and new perspectives, or unfold a motion-centered narrative that lead viewers through a journey that is both empathetic and a contemplative, designed to raise awareness for necessary conservation. Vasquez has grown more aware of this need himself after a Plant a Tree event organized by Transition Habitat Conservancy at Portal Ridge Wildlife Preserve, at which he and his family planted some 40 baby Joshua Trees.

His work represents what is truly a passion project for Vasquez. He relates that “Last year, the laws protecting the Joshua Tree made headlines, and one of our local politicians claimed that we have a housing problem. He voted against the protection of the tree in our community, the Antelope Valley. Unfortunately, some of the best real estate is filled with trees, and in order to build these natural landscapes get destroyed, along with the ecosystem that serves as the tree’s home…Determined to make a difference, I decided to initiate [what I describe as] the #JoshuaTreeChronicles on my own.”

Vasquez explains that he’s documented the Joshua Tree through photography “for quite some time,” but his current project offered “a new opportunity to craft a comprehensive body of work” encompassing many different artistic practices. “In a sense, this marks a new direction in my artistic practice,” he says.

The installation at Angels Gate Cultural Center is one riveting aspect of it. Inspired by a visit to a private property in Lancaster, Calif., which he documented with video and photographic art, the instalaltion creates an entire landscape for the tree itself and the fraught environment it now faces.

Vasquez uses a rich and vibrant palette, which he describes as “inspired by Guatemalan textiles which are colorful and profound. I also find those colors in the desert while hiking, while observing the sunrise or the sunset. The colors represent the distinctive light changes in our area from the softest pinks to the fire reds.”

The installation includes three main components: “Joshua Tree 1,” mixed media on canvas, “Joshua Tree 2,” also mixed media on canvas, and “Joshua Tree” (above), a mixed media installation that includes canvas, found objects, and sand.

At the base of “Joshua Tree,” the largest image of the three in the exhibition, there is a carved totem, an orange safety cone, abandoned water containers, and a rainbow painted tire – the detritus left by man in the desert,.

A sculptural work to the right of this central installation image features abandoned digital components, in a robotic interpretation of what could be a future Joshua Tree.

The sides of the sculpture’s base, featuring painted desert images, can be illuminated in a magical incandescence by the use of a portable black light. A video of Joshua Trees plays on a small wall monitor behind it.

On the opposite side of “Joshua Tree”, the other mixed media on canvas works are hung bracketing another sculptural work, this a series of arrows buried point down in a foam block painted with graffiti and also holding a can of fluorescent spray paint. At the bottom of the block there is a radiant blue and gold image of a Joshua Tree rising from the glow of city lights. The colors and its illumination resemble an icon image of a Catholic saint. At the base of the foam block, another traffic cone, a foam recreation of a Starbucks cup, crumpled papers, and another abandoned water container lie.

Each of the canvas and mixed media wall art pieces contains distinct elements, with “Joshua Tree” featuring a found-object yellow lizard, with a grid-like pattern of orange, blue, gold, and greens as the tree’s limbs, and mandala like shapes representing its leaves. On the ground around the tree are glowing rocks and flowers. “Joshua Tree 1 and 2” each visualize the branches and trunk of the tree as a solid green, with a grid-like pattern forming the sky and a ground-scape in greens, yellows and reds speckled with white and orange flowers in the first image. In the second, representational leaves grow from the tree’s arms, a golden-pebbled road leads out to the dark desert hills in the background. Spikey greenery and white and orange flowers cluster on the sand. In the near distance, desert houses float on the skyline and a multicolored moon hangs above them. The details of each unique work are both reverent and edged with the abstract and surreal, not unlike the mysterious, alien, and beautiful nature of the trees themselves and the chaos of human response to their preservation.

The masterful and passionately elegiac installation also includes a QR code for a moving short video, “Expect the Unexpected,” which can be viewed here, on the artist’s YouTube channel, edwinvasquez100.

Vasquez says that he wants viewers to see his project “in a positive light. Perhaps the best analogy I could use is that much like immigrants who may lack a voice, these plants in the Antelope Valley also face a similar predicament. Someone must at the very least bring attention to the issues they are confronting within the community. As an artist, I believe it is my responsibility to create art that highlights the significance of this unique tree in our community.”

Art in Residence nominated Vasquez for the installation’s commission, with Georgia Freedman-Harvey, the founder and director of MRH Fund for Artists, selecting the project as a part of the impressive collection of works in 7 Visions X 7 Artists. It’s a radiant start to exhibiting Vasquez’  Joshua Tree works. At UCLA Chicano Studies, the artist recently installed 20 other art pieces which are a part of the same mammoth project.

Here’s to Vasquez and the Joshua Tree continuing to grow and blossom. The Angels Gate exhibition closes with an artist talk and reception on February 24th from 2 to 4 p.m.

  • Genie Davis; photos: Genie Davis, and as provided by the artist

Classic Stone and Bronze Sculptures Provide Compelling Motion from Doug Thielscher

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Doug Thielscher’s stone and bronze sculptures are created using a traditional stone carving technique that the artist learned in Pietrasanta, Italy. His classical forms are just as beautiful and powerful as they were centuries ago during the Italian Renaissance, but presented with a fresh, modern twist.  His graceful work will be exhibited through Project Zola at the upcoming 29th iteration of the LA Art Show.

Thielscher’s mastery of stone carving spanned two decades, time spent in part working with the artisans/artigiani in Italy in the coastal Tuscany region known for both its marble quarries and bronze foundries. Both marble and bronze are the materials that the artist prefers to work in despite the difficulties inherent in manipulation of these mediums.

It is his ability to capture delicate detail in such resistant materials that is perhaps most striking;  his works vibrate with passion and desire, struggle, pain, and triumph.  Thielscher’s thematic purpose reveals intense and eternal human feelings and actions. The subjects he creates – hands, feet, faces, horses – all honor the historic art of figurative carving while creating potent images that very much reflect the ethos of today.

The artist explains that he wants his work to truly capture a viewer, compelling moments of reflection. He says that he wants to reveal “the moment of greatest tension” in each visual story. With this in mind, his work is designed to illuminate “the most expressive gestures of a scene…[and] highlight the intensity at that climactic point.”

Much of Thielscher’s work focuses on fragmentary parts of a figure, but he also creates abstract sculptural works that offer multiple interpretations for the viewer.  As an artist working in such classic form, he strives to create work that is utterly original and not derivative of anything that has come before but is still visually meaningful and compelling. He also ensures the image he’s creating will present as a full 360-degree view for a multi-sided experience.

The ultimate purpose of his work, he says, is to exemplify the ways in which human beings seek, reach for, and embody the way we reach and strive for goals in our lives. Thielscher’s art expresses that very moment when success or failure hang in the balance.

In his Carrara marble sculpture “Crux,” above, a twisting, reaching arm and perfectly wrought hand, partially wrapped in a ribbon, rise upward from an abstract form below. Of this work he says “I was trying to create the feeling of an old-fashioned spinning top that is just at the point where it starts to lose momentum, and the point kicks out at the bottom… The ribbon can also be seen to symbolize a ribbon that is often given out as a prize in a competition.” For Thielscher, that competition might well be life itself.

Other commanding images include a foot stepping on an amorphous bundle in the Carrara marble “To Be Different,” and the Red Persian travertine, bronze, wood, resin, and stainless steel “Equine XI.” The piece is an entirely unique image of a horse that is also an homage, the artist says, to favorite artists such “Henry Moore, Brancusi, Dali, Tony Cragg, Mondrian, Rodin, Francis Bacon, Giacometti, Alexandros of Antioch, and Anish Kapoor,” in terms of both form and material employed.

Many of Thielscher’s fine works will be viewable through Project Zola at Booth 918 of the LA Art Show. The LA Art Show’s Opening Night Premiere is February 14th, with the show on view via general admission February 15-18th. The event features over 120 galleries and a diverse selection of art, artists and galleries that span over 180,000 square feet of exhibition space.

  • Genie Davis; images provided by the artist

 

Betye Saar Offers Haunting And Evocative Immersive Installation at the Huntington

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Paddle your own canoe.

Never, though the winds may rave,

Falter or look back:

But upon the darkest wave

Leave a shining track.

Sarah Bolton

Drifting Towards Twilight, Betye Saar’s large-scale immersive installation, commissioned by the Huntington Art Museum and Library, is a deeply moving sculptural piece, comprised of evocative found materials collected over years along with dried cuttings from the gardens. Set in the middle of a blue-gray hued room, the large canoe filled with assembled travelers is an evocative piece rich in metaphor. With a nod towards global mythic narratives, the canoe, which the artist altered to make it look more vintage, rests on a bed of dried organic materials sourced from the myriad gardens, seemingly in a liminal state between heaven and earth. The intense neon blue light visible underneath the canoe suggests a supernatural voyage into the looming unknown.

In the middle of the canoe, situated on small children’s chairs, are three almost identical bird cages (each slightly larger or smaller than the preceding one) with deer antlers sitting inside. In the front and rear of the canoe are guardian human-like figures which are constructed of altered staircase balustrades. One cannot help but see this as a family portrait of the artist with her husband and three children. Though the white bone antlers can reference death, here they are a symbol of regeneration – as they fall off naturally and grow back even larger. The skeleton-like cages become a vessel for containing the soul while paradoxically letting light and air in.

While Saar has used cages in the past to allude to the slave trade, in this piece the intent seems different. The canoe serves as a metaphor for transitioning from one place to another, from the physical plane to the spiritual plane. The dazzling neon blue light mysteriously illuminates the ground under this cosmic canoe, amplifying the imminence of a supernatural excursion. The subtle and exquisite lighting design shifts the mood ever so slightly, suggesting the sun setting and rising through daylight to nightfall. The phases of the moon painted on the wall speak to Saar’s longstanding interest in mysticism and the occult.

The accompanying short film directed by Kyle Provencio Reingold, program director of Ghetto Film School LA, is a gem. It documents Saar’s history and childhood connections to the Huntington while documenting her process building the installation. This contemplative piece connects to the burial traditions of the Vikings and South Asians whose rituals include majestic funeral pyres floating out to sea. The boat is a widespread and potent symbol of transitioning from one world to the next in mythology. Betye Saar, at 97, is la national treasure, upbeat and masterful as she continues to delight, educate, and surprise as she and we all are drifting inexorably towards the twilight, enjoying the pleasures of creativity, family and kin along the way.

  • Nancy Kay Turner; photos by Joshua White provided by the Huntington Art Museum and Library

 

 

 

Must See Art in DTLA – Luis De Jesus, Vielmetter, Nicodim, Artbug, and at the Bendix

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There is a plethora of excellent art in downtown Los Angeles right now. It might, if you feel daring, even be possible to walk between them. Whether you go by foot, car, or public transport, here are some excellent shows that you simply should not miss.

At Luis De Jesus, two stunning solo shows use unique materials to create riveting, utterly original art. Hector Dionicio Mendoza Buscando Futuro / Searching for a Future, marks the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, and it’s a splendid one. From wall art to giant sculptural forms, Mendoza shapes his figures from unusual materials, some of which he describes as “ethnic breads, ” as well as “wood, feathers, bark, and cardboard.” Monumental in size in some cases, and in meaning in every piece, Mendoza’s work is informed by his own personal experiences and the border politics of the U.S. and Mexico. His visualization of immigrant experience is richly moving, a series of browns and beiges and golds with the occasional splash of color from peacock feathers and recycled clothing. This is literally and figuratively colossal work.

Griselda Rosas‘ Donde pasó antes (Where it happened before) is equally passionate and glorious. Drawing from both personal memories and fairy tales, Rosas’ work is as vividly colorful as Mendoza’s is steeped in the brown of desert dust and southwestern landscapes.

Rosas creates mixed media collages from fabrics, cyanotypes, acrylic, watercolor, natural pigments and lush embroidery on linen and ostrich skin. Sculptural works represent ornamental slingshots. Her magical collages tell trenchant tales about colonization and resistance, while using skilled textile manipulation and fanciful figures. She blends mythic images and children’s stories, using a brilliant palette that vibrates with both color and meaning. Remarkable work.

Both solo exhibitions run through February 17th. Luis De Jesus is located at 1110 Matteo Street in the arts district.

Not far away, there’s a new kid in town, a small but well-curated art collective has shaped exhibition space for MAARLA members at Artbug. The opening show, A Mirror to the Sprawl features the brilliantly colored acrylic painting of Hagop Najarian; a riveting abstract utilizing found objects from Stephanie Sherwood; and a terrific series of diminutive vinyl cutout and acrylic flora from Surge Witron. Electronic timers animate a visually cool and thematically fascinating work from Carly Chubak providing apt social commentary on the cost paid for labor. Sean Cully offers a lovely, interactive wood rain stick sculpture, while josh vasquez exhibits a still life of a classic alcoholic beverage presented behind a thick wall of plexiglass, much as it would be on a shop shelf. Emily Babette Gross, Katie Shanks, and H. Leslie Foster II also offer beautifully wrought work.

The exhibition runs through the February 4 at Artbug, which is located at 441 Hunter Street, Unit B.

A short distance away, Vielmetter’s multiple galleries offer two separate solo exhibitions and one vividly delightful group show. London-based artist Celia Paul’s Life Painting in Gallery 1 offers a primarily pastel palette and soft focus on images that include the British Museum, a white rose, the Devon shore, and her “Standing Self Portrait.” Opalescent shadows and a gentle rhythm of brush strokes suffuse the quietly lustrous exhibition.

In the Greenhouse annex, a lively, vividly colorful group exhibition from artists Lavaughan Jenkins, Mario Joyce, Raffi Kalenderian, and Kiriakos Tompolidis showcases works of oil over foam and acrylic on wood panel from Jenkins that vibrate with color and texture; stained-glass-like collage and mixed media works from Joyce; cool and dream-like patterns in truly lovely work from Tompolidis created in acrylic, oil and photo transfer; and Kalenderian’s vivid and visceral images of everything from a ruby red cocktail to a burnished orange backdrop to a Glendale billiards hall. Both terrific shows are up until March 9th.

Closing soon, January 27th in Vielmetter Gallery 2, Todd Gray offers splendid 3D photo collages created from acrylic, oil and photo transfer in a tour de force solo exhibition Rome Work. Images convey thoughtful and startling takes on religion, colonialism, and outdated cultural tropes in a completely unique multiplicity of images.

Upstairs at Nicodim’s annex, a lustrous display of rich acrylic still-lifes glow with inner light from Massachusetts-based artist Nicole Duennebier, in her solo exhibition The Only Way Out is Through. suffused with radiance but dark, these dream-like yet intricately realistic images cast mysterious spells.

Down the hall at another Nicodim outpost, No Shortcuts to Aztlan, Christian Ruiz Berman’s multi-cultural kaleidoscopic images overlap with figurative, surreal, geometric, and abstract elements whose patterns are as supple and evocative as its layered subjects. Both shows are on exhibit through February 17th. Nicodim and Vielmetter are located at 1700 Santa Fe Ave.

A few blocks away at the Bendix building, Tiger Strikes Asteroid presents the vibrant palette of Sara Vanderbeek. The Austin native uses vivid fabric dyes to create images reminiscent of Gaugin figures on linen. Works are hung from the ceiling – including cut outs of legs and objects of clothing – as well as on the walls for an immersive exhibition of a passionate palette. From pregnancy to social violence, while some subjects may be dark, others are more whimsical, and all are celebrations of the glories, indignities, traumas, and triumphs of life itself. Above all else, the joyousness of creation is hanging on the figurative line in these textile works. This is a wow. On display through February 4th.

Adjacent gallery space Monte Vista displays the layered, glossy works of Olivia Booth, works so deep that the viewer feels as if diving into the glowing abstract images is a real possibility. Using a combination of diverse materials that include flashglass and borosillicate, plastic, melted mirror, oil and rubber, the images are both gorgeous and gritty, shining and disturbing. The works will also be on display through February 4th.

At 515, the group exhibition On Painting covers a wide range of creativity in a series of abstract works that include Carlos Beltran Arechiga’s futuristic standout, as well as stellar works by Surge Witrön, Crystal Michaelson, Pamela Taguinot, Peter Nagy and Sasha Mariyem. Sleek, supple, and all about the brush stroke, this show closes February 3rd.

Also in the Bendix, Durden and Ray offers a fascinating collaboration between the Los Angeles based collective and a collective in Arctic Norway, Small Projects. Titled Beyond Horizons, the exhibition was curated by Jet pascua, and featured artists Marsil Andjelov Al-Mahamid, Jojo Austria, Arezoo Bharthania, Tanya Busse, Joe Davidson, Dani Dodge, Eva Faché, Stein Henningsen, Ged Merino, Ina Otzko, Jet Pascua, and Stephanie Sherwood.

The show focuses on landscape – both geographic and political, with note made of climate change and border conflicts. Conceptually strong, exhibition images are primarily abstract, and visually absorbing. Images of golden Joshua trees from Dodge and wonderful geographic landscapes created from the improbable medium of Scotch tape from Davidson join a vertically hung urban forest of images from Barthania among other stellar works by the LA team, while images from their Nordic counterparts include beautiful textile works and sculptures. The exhibition is on exhibit until February 4th.

The Bendix Building is located at 1206 Maple Avenue in DTLA. Go downtown!

Genie Davis; photos by Genie Davis