urban/sub/urban: Selected Artists Portray the Human Environment

Louis Stern Fine Arts opens an exhibition of urban and suburban imagery.  A selection of contemporary artists explore our human environment through the media of painting, photography, and sculpture.  The subject matter ranges from freeway systems to hilltop homes, from bars to backyard swimming pools.  

Nashville Realist John Baeder is best known for his stark images of diners and other storefronts.  His facades show evidence of human use, even of decay, while never showing the people themselves. Tim Prythero, from Albuquerque, is attracted to similar iconography, but his trashy trailers and movie houses come to life as three dimensional miniatures.

In contrast to the rough surfaces of Baeder and Prythero, Los Angeles artists James Doolin and Lauren Richardson paint bold, bright, and vivid representations of characteristic local scenery, as in Richardson’s Goldfish in the Park (1991) which a central deep blue pond filled with orange goldfish, is towered over by rows of palm trees, the classic Southern California palette.

Carlos Almaraz also takes his subjects from the local surroundings.  His Car Crash is an expressionistic, and all too familiar image of commuter life.  From individual video frames Robert Flick constructs elongated views of well travelled Los Angeles streets, in this case Wilshire Boulevard.  An even broader perspective is taken by Barrie Mottishaw and Larry Cohen who draw back to depict the full cityscape, the structure of our urban and suburban life.  

A more painterly, perhaps romantic, approach is taken by Peter Alexander in his aerial views of the Los Angeles Airport, the open outdoor spaces warm and glowing with beacon lights, and also in the atmospheric industrial photographs of Michael Kenna. Similarly suggestive are Frank Kirk's moody depictions of deserted suburban roadways beneath dark and ominous skies. Diane Hayden paints suburban dwellings, alone or in clusters, clinging to green hilltops, or nestled in valleys.  While many of the artists in urban/sub/urban focus primarily on our human product, Hayden shows our constant attempt to incorporate ourselves into nature. ˇ

urban/sub/urban will be on view during gallery hours:  Tuesday through Friday, 10am-6pm and Saturday, 11am-5pm.  Opening reception, Saturday, November 16, 5pm - 8pm.  Parking is available on the street and in the Apcoa parking lot on Melrose Avenue, west of Almont Drive.