June - July 31, 2009

Parallel Play & Collisions highlights new work by three Los Angeles area artists working in a variety of media including assemblage, sculpture, and printmaking. While diverse, these works overlap in their aesthetic and the use of found objects, creating a dialogue in mixed media. Artweek’s Previews Editor Debra Koppman describes the exhibition in the June 2009 issue:

“Kohl and Kyes consider their work to be an exploration of “contemporary artifacts,” though they address this idea in dramatically different ways. Kohl’s approach is stark, combining found steel—culled from agricultural and industrial sources—in her freestanding and wall-mounted sculptures. Raw remains of industrial artifacts are first reassembled and then treated with an application of adobe, at once softening the effect of the material and alluding to the ever-presence of the earth. The resulting abstractions refer back the material’s original use, while alluding to new interpretations.

While an interest in the use of found materials, Kyes’s aesthetic and approach are more baroque. Layers and layers of found bits and pieces are somewhat randomly smashed and woven together to create new hybrid forms. Synthesis as a process for creation becomes both method and concept in this work; the seeming dualities of randomness and pattern found in nature unite in the process and the construction of meaning.

Raulinaitis’s monoprints and collagraphs also incorporate found objects, processes of layering, and the re-creation of art from humble materials. The work literally focuses on the four seasons, thematically drawing one’s attention to the idea of change within repetition, and of the challenge of finding our small place in the cycle of nature.”

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

Joyce Kohl (Altadena, CA) received her MFA at California State University, Fullerton and is a professor of art at California State University, Bakersfield. Kohl has completed numerous commissions and public art projects including those from the Los Angeles Metro for the Gold Line’s Claremont Station (to be completed in 2014), and the Cities of Santa Monica and Bakersfield. Kohl also also completed a collaborative project in Harare, Zimbabwe as part of her Fulbright award grant project. She has exhibited recently in local venues such as L.A. Artcore, Xiem Gallery, El Camino College, and the Bakersfield Museum of Art. Recent international exhibtions include the Exchange Exhibition at the To...