Macrocosms & New Topographies

Gary Frederick Brown, David Jang, Diane Silver, Christine Weir On View: February 27 – April 2, 2010 Reception: Saturday, February 27, 6-9 p.m. Postcard Photos from the Opening Reception Read the review in the Glendale News Press Return to Brand Library Art Galleries Schedule page

Macrocosms & New Topographies, the new exhibition at Brand Library Art Galleries, features the work of four innovative and accomplished Los Angeles area artists. Gary Frederick Brown, David Jang, Diane Silver and Christine Weir work in a variety of media, including sculptural installations made of discarded water bottles, aluminum cans and potato chip bags, laboriously created graphite pencil drawings, monotypes, works on canvas and two-dimensional mixed media works. Each artist in their own way explores themes related to the way we view the physical world (the city, the planet, the cosmos) and humanity’s complex relationship to it. Jang’s work looks at the world through the lens of the consumer waste we generate, while Brown explores the connections between all living things from the microscopic to the macroscopic. Weir and Silver both create non-traditional “landscapes”. Weir uses satellite images from Google Earth as the starting point for her work. The resulting topographical drawings are both thought provoking and beautiful. Silver depicts the urban environment either from an aerial or distant perspective. Using varying degrees of abstraction, she captures the urgency and frenetic pace of city life, at the same time depicting the beauty in its patterns and rhythm.

Gary Frederick Brown (Los Angeles) has long been a practicing artist, creating jewelry and giving new life to found objects with his mixed media sculptures. Since 2004 when he was a participant in master printmaker Ruth Weisberg’s intensive workshop held in Florence, Italy his focus has been on the monotype. Brown prints on a press of his own design and manufacture. His prints may go through the press multiple times and he often further works the surface with colored pencil, pastels, charcoal or paint. Brown’s monotype drawings are an expression of his interest in physics and the principles of String Theory. He is drawn to elements that lend themselves to chaos, and in his work repetitious and interconnected patterns represent the part-whole relationships that are fundamental to the matter of the cosmos. Brown says that “we are to our planet as the cells in our body are to us, and similarly the planets in our solar system [are] to the galaxy and [galaxies] are to the universe.” Brown frequently exhibits in Los Angeles, most recently at Vertical Bulthaup, the Pacific Design Center, Cake Gallery, and ArtHouse Gallery in Santa Monica. More information about Brown’s work can be found on his website.	Gary Frederick Brown Cultural Identities monotype drawing, 26” x 35”
David Jang (Los Angeles) was born in Seoul, Korea and lives and works in Los Angeles. He earned a BFA from the College of Visual Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota. Jang’s two-dimensional and sculptural work incorporates and is inspired by the artifacts of our modern “throwaway” society. Deconstructed, the detritus of mass produced plastic water bottles, aluminum cans, cardboard boxes and packing materials become formal experiments that often also incorporate wood, wax, oil and stain. The resulting structures and imagery have “an expressive spatial growth pattern” that evokes the order and rhythm of the natural world while still referencing the industry and technology of our urban environment. Jang is a member of the Korean Artists Association of Southern California and exhibits frequently in the Los Angeles area, most recently at the Downtown Art Center Gallery, the West Los Angeles College Gallery, the Korean Cultural Center and the LA Art Association’s Gallery 825. More information about Jang’s work can be found on his website.	David Jang Processing wood, wax, oil and stain, 30” x 72”
Diane Silver (Los Angeles) earned a BFA at California State University, Northridge and studied in Art Center College of Design’s MFA program. Silver learned to paint in the many-layered oil painting technique practiced by the old masters. For some time Silver used that method to create abstracted Pacific Ocean seascapes and coastal landscapes from a high altitude or distant perspective. The work in this exhibition grows out of that body of work but takes as its subject the urban landscape and is created using a variety of mixed media instead of a traditional oil on canvas technique. Movement and energy are captured in her aerial views of city streets which present as abstract grids, and in her cityscapes Silver captures motion in the sweeping forms of a freeway interchange or the long geometric line of an airport runway. Silver explains that “we must reevaluate the conventional in order to see something new.” In her work, “the commonplace becomes symbolic.” She has shown recently at Phantom Gallery (Long Beach), Hangar Gallery in Santa Monica, Pharmaka, and in juried exhibits at the Topanga Canyon Gallery and the Palos Verdes Art Center. More information about Silver’s work can be found on her website.	Diane Silver Microscape #3 oil, wax, tape, enamel on board, 12” x 12”
Christine Weir (Los Angeles) has a bachelor’s degree in fine arts with a concentration in drawing from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. Weir’s intricate and textured graphite pencil drawings portray topographic views of the landscape. Having conquered a fear of flying in 2006, Weir was finally able to look out her airplane window. “This newfound perspective took hold of me” and the view “30,000 feet below conjured up all kinds of ideas about perception vs. reality and the mundane vs. the fantastic.” Since then she has been using Google Earth to identify the locations and patterns she wants to recreate in her drawings. While the satellite viewpoint suggests themes of surveillance and privacy, the sites themselves often have associations that add layers of meaning to the depictions. Sites that relate to military installations may elicit our fears about nuclear weapons, terrorism and the war machine, and drawings of vast reservoirs or circle farm sites in the Midwest may speak to anxieties about environmental degradation, the fragility of our food supply and potential water shortage crises. Weir has shown recently at the SCA Project Gallery, Pomona, the Richard Levy Gallery in Albuquerque, Los Angeles Art Association’s Gallery 825, the I-5 Gallery and the Center for the Arts in Eagle Rock. More about Weir’s work can be found on her website.	Christine Weir Formation graphite on paper mounted on panel, 22½” x 30”

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